Meena Iyer (DNA; October 9, 2018)

The walls of filmmaker Vipul Shah’s office in Andheri recount a glorious tale. There are countless posters of movies, some produced by him and others backed as well as directed by him. The man behind mainstream entertainers, which include Aankhen (2002), Waqt: The Race Against Time (2005), Namaste London (2007), Singh Is Kinng (2008) and Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty (2014) was on top of things for over a decade and these framed pictures bear testimony to this fact. However, for reasons best known to him, he took an eight-year-long sabbatical from film direction. He is back now (looking a bit pale though because he is recovering from dengue) with his latest offering, the romantic-comedy titled Namaste England with Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra, which releases on October 19, Dussehra.

Confident that he will get the audience interested in his latest offering, Vipul, who is nattily dressed in an orange hoodie, settles in a comfortable-looking chair in his fashionably-done up office and begins to talk. Here’s handing over the mic to him then. Excerpts...

What’s playing on your mind currently?
The lead up to the film is the fact that now it’s all coming together. It’s obviously the most exciting and anxious phase. Now that I’m seeing the entire movie, I’m looking forward to see how the audience reacts to it.

Why the long gap in direction?
When I decided to take a break after Action Replayy (2010), I hadn’t planned it to be such a long one. I had just thought it would be for a year or two. I felt I would utilise the time to learn something that I should, considering the changes that cinema was undergoing. Simultaneously, my other productions were also happening. One day, yeh karte karte, I realised seven years had gone by. I thought I would stop production and get back to direction. Other productions like Force, Holiday and Commando were time-consuming. I didn’t want to do two things — producing and directing — at a time. I kept learning while all this was happening... I believe I have learnt something and hope Namaste England shows that.

Your storytelling has always resonated with an audience or so it seemed, going by your track record.
Subject-wise, even Namaste England, seems like a simple film. But the audience will be surprised. I was talking to my team about running a contest saying that if you guess the film’s interval point, we will send you to London. There’s a lot of content in the movie that is not a part of the trailer. There is a serious amount of twists and turns.

When I talk about learning, I’m referring to the process of evolving. In the last seven-eight years, the digital world has evolved a great deal and with so much content coming in, there are various experiments happening and the format of storytelling is changing the world over. So, I wanted to know if I could adapt myself to this new way of storytelling while keeping my own grain intact. I didn’t want to leave my strength, but at the same time, I also wanted to imbibe something new. People are making films and editing on their cell phones, which is fantastic. The characters have changed, all because of evolution through the digital world. I wanted to learn something new and try to incorporate that into my film. At the same time, I was making the movie for the Indian audience, so I had to balance both. That’s a constant process of reinvention ­— how you don’t lose yourself but also add something that is dramatic and closer to your roots. Six months ago, what was new is old today.

This film comes after several years since Namastey London.
It comes after a gap of 11 years. We had to have a script to take it forward. In Namastey London, there was a strong point about the girl being able to dream and following it to see where it takes her. When I was writing it with Ritesh Shah and Suresh Nair, a lot of people told me that these kinds of stories don’t work in India. For me, that was a journey of the girl who was forced by her father to marry someone against her will. She fights for her dream and in the process, falls in love with the same guy.

I wanted a female-oriented script that had a strong male lead as well. In this film, Arjun’s character is such that every girl will feel her boyfriend/husband should be like him. He is affectionate, understanding and has a good sense of humour. But he is also someone who can kill for his or his family’s honour. Apart from that, he is able to understand the girl’s dream and fight with the whole world to see that it’s realised. So, it was important to find a story where the girl’s dream becomes a big thing.

There’s a distinction between a girl wanting to work and her wanting to have the freedom to decide what she wants to do with her life. Largely, we have overcome the working issue, but we haven’t come to terms with the issue of giving full freedom to her. We have given it to the boy, but the girl doesn’t have the full freedom to make decisions about her life. When I found a story with this idea at the centre, I thought I must make the sequel and the time is right.

You have stuck to the same writing team all these years.
Yes, all my films are written by Suresh and Ritesh. We get along well. We rarely meet, but the relationship we share is great. I’m happy with the synergy we have and I appreciate the kind of work they put in my scripts.

Did you in any way miss working with Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif?
Akshay and I have worked together so much. I miss him every single day of my shooting. I can’t imagine a day without him. We did six films together. It’s been a wonderful association. He’s such a fun guy, he puts an extra effort to make the set a happy place. He can call me Sundy, Sethji, sometimes he calls me by some random names. That’s how it has been from the beginning. I also miss working with Katrina. She is extremely professional and passionate, the whole drive and passion towards her work are commendable. When I met her for the first time, I was doing Waqt. I told her that ‘I would really like to work with you but your Hindi is an issue for a movie like Waqt.’ And I was truly impressed because the next time she met me, she was able to read Hindi. She had worked hard on it and learnt so much in that short span of time. She blew me over with her dedication.

In Namaste England, I enjoyed working with Arjun and Parineeti equally, if not more. Sometimes you had to tell Arjun to calm down and chill. He is fully charged 24/7. I haven’t seen a moment where he is dull or tired.

He is Ranveer Singh’s best friend, so we’re guessing he has the same energy levels!
Arjun is a cylinder of energy. When you are with him, you constantly feel that please, give me a breather because you are on a different high. He’s extremely disciplined. In that sense, he and Akshay have a lot of similarities. Arjun is never late, he likes to be involved and keeps the environment on the set easy. If someone makes a mistake, he will find a solution. If a shirt is not fitting well, he won’t throw a tantrum or make a fuss. He is like, ‘Fix it and let’s go’. Parineeti, as we know, is a supremely talented actor. One thing I believe is that even if people don’t like the film, they will love the lead actors’ chemistry. Arjun-Parineeti showed it in Ishaqzaade (2012) and I’m surprised they didn’t do another film together after that. They have the capability of becoming one of the most popular pairs.

Their chemistry is liked by Arjun’s grandma (Nirmala Kapoor) so much that she feels he should get married to her. Parineeti is wonderful and doesn’t realise how good she is at what she is doing. It was great fun working with both of them.

Will you wait to see how Namaste England fares at the box office to announce your next directorial?
I’m keen to watch it with the audience to find out whether I’ve been able to reinvent myself in terms of the time and effort that I’ve invested. I’ve got a few scripts ready for my next. But first, I want to see how I have fared as a director and then decide.