I was 12. Our, teacher made us write an autobiography and I realised that I wasn't very interesting. I began to make things up, and that's when I thought maybe I was a writer, or at least a fiction writer.

Certain experiences you never forget, no matter how old you become.

For a couple of years at the end of the 1970s, Dustin Hoffman was a fixture in our family. My father was his lawyer and friend.

The difference between great actors and the rest of us isn't simply that they know how to make more out of less, but that, like lions at the watering hole, they will always take more than their share from the pool of available resources - extra air from the room, added knowledge from our faces.

My mother was an actress in comedies. My father wrote scenarios. They were not opposed to my being an actor. I really didn't know what it meant, but I wanted to be one anyway.

Congress leaders did not exert pressure on me to contest from Bengaluru South. But I told them categorically that there is no question of contesting from any other constituency except Mandya because of the bonding my family has with the people.

We should be the natural home for young mothers. But we're not. Because too often we sound like people who think the only good mother is a married mother.

I don't want to let any of my family down.