Garima Sharma (MID-DAY; March 6, 2014)

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala is gearing up to launch several fresh stories and faces over the next year. It’s all part of a new plan, to back and present a new generation of talent and stories to the world. “There are new stories coming my way and since they are interesting, I am backing them,” says Sajid, referring to his recent release Highway and the upcoming 2 States.

In fact, his first ever collaboration with Highway director Imtiaz Ali has resulted in critical acclaim and success. “If I could, I would’ve had him on board four years ago. Our second movie with Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone starts in July. We wanted to work on it first, but since we had a gap of six-eight months while planning it, we made Highway. It’s a wonderful story told in a modest budget and I didn’t want to let go of an opportunity to work with Imtiaz,” says Sajid.

2 States is the other collaboration he is confident of. About teaming up with Karan Johar for the first time, Sajid says, “That film was green-lighted by 90% of the industry. Whoever I went to, they wanted to do it because they had read the book. One of Karan’s directors had written a screenplay. I read it and loved it.”

Such collaborations are taking him on a different path, but for Sajid, it is all organic. “When I made one film a year, I did it with people I liked. I made four-five films with Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar. But these new films need newer faces. We are launching new directors next year, like I launched Shirish (Kunder), Sajid (Khan), Sabbir (Khan), etc, a few years ago.”

He is also taking to the director’s chair for the first time with Kick, starring Salman and Jacqueline Fernandez. “It’s not too difficult to balance between being a producer and director. I now understand my directors much more than before,” he concludes.