When I was growing up, I remember having read all the books in the library. I often tried to emulate my favourite writers.

Films and books have been intertwined as far as my growing up is concerned.

Books of exploration have always fascinated me, like somebody going up the Amazon for the first time.

My mother wanted me to join the Indian army, as the army was seen as a decent and respectable career to have. I shocked my mother by telling her that I wanted to be a writer.

I have a tight family group that's really important to me. I don't want to work all the time.

One of the magical things about these anthropomorphic animal movies is that we can take things that are so common in our own world that we deal with, like the DMV, or moving to a new city, or our family, and show you a mirror image of those things, reflected in a whole new way. That's why animals are great.

When you grow up a fatherless son, in many ways you have to raise yourself. No one tells you what looks good on you, how to carry yourself, or provides the approval. Without a father, you grow up never knowing what you didn't have. There is no intimate model of who you want to become, so it's as if you're always guessing.

I don't want my kids to have to walk through a world where they have to constantly explain who they are and who their family is.