If patience is an actor’s greatest virtue, it’s a filmmaker’s absolute superpower. No one knows this better than Abhinay Deo. After a grueling three-year wait to bring the Karisma Kapoor-led crime thriller Brown to screens, he’s finally soaking in the well-deserved applause.

But the universe wasn’t done with him yet. Out of nowhere, life threw in a plot twist: right alongside the Brown buzz, a wave of nostalgia has suddenly revived the love for his 2013 television series 24 — the iconic Indian adaptation of Kiefer Sutherland’s real-time American thriller.

Deo calls it a “sweet coincidence” that the Anil Kapoor-led thriller landed on streaming platforms barely two weeks before Brown premièred on Zee5. “It’s heartening and encouraging [to see] that even after 13 years, 24 is still one of the top 10 shows [on Jio+Hotstar]. I’m getting so many phone calls from people saying they had missed it then and are discovering it now,” he smiles.

But Deo wasn’t one to rest on nostalgia. Even as 24 enjoyed a second innings, he was busy scripting the next leg for Brown.

He gambled by presenting Kapoor without make-up in a striking de-glam avatar, and it paid off. The filmmaker says he saw the role as an opportunity for the actor to reinvent herself. “I told her that if people see her in the same way they did 30 years back, they will be happy. But this was her second chance to do something that probably no one ever expected. She said, ‘I love it. I’m all game. Let’s do this’.” So, Kapoor didn’t any touch ups between shots.

Now, discussions are already underway about future instalments. “We are talking about season three of 24 and season two of Brown,” Deo reveals, while cautioning that nothing is official yet. For now, the filmmaker plans a brief pause before diving back into development. “The ideas never stop. Taking a break is important to streamline those thoughts,” he says.

The Imran Khan, Vir Das, and Kunaal Roy Kapur-starrer will celebrate its 15th anniversary on July 1. While Deo is eager to return with a sequel, he says the decision lies with producer Aamir Khan. Deo says, “I’m ready on one foot to go on the floor immediately as soon as Aamir calls me up for ‘Delhi Belly 2’.

Etti Bali (HINDUSTAN TIMES; August 4, 2020)

The insider-outsider debate has opened a Pandora’s box in the Hindi film industry. Even musician A R Rahman and sound designer Resul Pookutty spoke about facing rejection in Bollywood post their Hollywood stint. Now, music producer and composer Ram Sampath, who has given music for films such as Delhi Belly (2011) and Fukrey (2013), opens up about favouritism in the industry and how only a select few have the final say.

“Bollywood is a bunch of clans and as a music composer, you end up working for one of them. Unlike the West where there are studios, professional executives, a pipeline to launch talent and a pride in systems that nurture future stars and reward the meritorious, here, the shots are called by a few interconnected families, with rare exceptions,” he says.

Having composed music for advertising campaigns and pop songs, Sampath felt the need to take the leap into Bollywood as “having a few successful Bollywood films under your belt makes life much more tenable as a professional”. He shifted gears with Khakee (2004). What followed was requests to copy songs. “I can’t recall a single enjoyable experience of working with producers in Bollywood, except Aamir Khan. Everyone else has a contract that takes away your rights before you play a single note, or shop for third party music behind your back, or have limited budgets and unlimited changes,” he shares. His wife, artiste Sona Mohapatra, recently tweeted about his plight. “Getting a ‘Laila’ shoved down my throat in the last film I scored, Raees (2017), despite the initial brief being to make a dance song like my own, ‘Aisa Jadoo Dala Re’, was a blow,” he says.

The composer, who started working at the age of 16 to support his family, has now found solace in other activities. “With Sona’s help, I’ve been focussed on living a well-rounded life,” he says, adding, “The independent music scene is bursting with new talent and now is a good time to revive the music scene outside of Bollywood.”

Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; April 2, 2020)

Coming a close second to the barrage of exercise videos that have flooded social media news feeds amid the lockdown are live concerts from folk of the music fraternity. Joining the growing league of musicians enthralling fans from home is Sona Mohapatra, who recently conducted a contest for her fans, urging them to identify three looks from her music videos, and guess the songs they featured in. The first 20 to answer correctly were told to make a song request, and name a person they'd want to dedicate it to.

At a live concert to be held today at 4 pm, the singer along with composer-husband Ram Sampath, will belt out the numbers.

Mohapatra says, "Apart from performing these songs acoustically, we also plan to share a few behind-the-scenes anecdotes of working on our albums and films like Delhi Belly, Talaash, and Fukrey, and shows like Satyamev Jayate and Coke Studio. Fans will be able to ask us questions. We can engage with each other and share feedback." She urges individuals to take to such forms of communication while practising social distancing. "Human contact in these tough times is welcome."

Rinky Kumar (DNA; September 17, 2018)

Imran Khan, who was last seen on the big screen in Katti Batti (2015), has now turned director. The suave actor has written and helmed Mission Mars: Keep Walking India, which is launched by Johnnie Walker — The Journey and produced by Dharma 2.0.

The short film, which releases digitally on September 20, revolves around The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), (also known as Mangalyaan), which was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation. Since September 24, 2014, India’s rover successfully began orbiting Mars, marking the country’s first venture into interplanetary space. Imran, who is ‘a self-confessed space geek’, talks about his transition from an actor to a director, being influenced by Steven Spielberg, and his future plans. Excerpts...

What prompted you to become a director?
Everyone had been asking me for the past 10 years when would I direct a film, so I thought it was finally time (laughs).

What attracted you towards this unconventional subject?
I’ve always been fascinated by space exploration. Ever since I was a kid, it has fired my imagination. In 2013, I was following the Mangalyaan mission closely. Late last year, filmmaker Punit Malhotra asked me if I would be interested in making a short about it. I jumped at the idea. My friend Abhishek Saha and I co-wrote the screenplay over a span of four-and-a-half months. This was followed by two months of pre-production. It has been exciting because I’m telling the story of something that I find inspirational. This is a huge achievement by Indian scientists which needs to be celebrated.

What kind of research went into it?
Unfortunately, we didn’t get direct access to the agencies involved. So, I watched interviews, documentaries and scanned articles. I also read Reaching For The Stars: India’s Journey To The Mars by Pallava Bagla from where I got a lot of structure for the film.

How challenging was it to capture everything within a short film?
That was the tricky aspect, which took us time to crack. Thankfully, there was a cinematic structure in the actual event. It took 300 days for the spacecraft to travel to Mars. In the mission’s final leg, it had to slow down and enter the orbit around the red planet. That manoeuver had to happen when the craft was behind Mars, so there was a 25-minute period where the scientists could neither see nor communicate with it. We’ve set the film in the control room during those 25 minutes when we can show viewers flashbacks.

Do you plan to return to acting or you want to continue with direction?
I’m not particularly excited by acting. I’m more thrilled to be in the driver’s seat where I can decide what is happening on set.

Are you looking at the big screen or digital platform?
I’ve not considered anything yet. But I do realise that the classic theatrical business of people buying tickets and going to the cinema halls to watch a film is on its last leg. The way ahead is video-on-demand where viewers can decide what they want to watch, and how and where they want to do it. You are not bound by the constraints of censorship, or advertisements. You put the control of the viewing experience entirely in the hands of viewers.

Which filmmakers do you admire?
While growing up, I found the works of Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann and Robert Zemeckis extremely influential. Films like Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Back To The Future blew my mind. Today, Christopher Nolan is one such director whose movies are mainstream where the craft is evident. We, on the other hand, make a lot of popular movies, but the craft is missing.

What have you been busy with in the last three years when you stayed away from the arclights?
I’ve been writing and enjoying being a father to my daughter. I have been living my life. It’s been delightful (smiles).

How do you look back at your transition from an actor to a director?
It’s been tremendous. I started my career over 10 years ago. But at that point, we were still shooting a movie on celluloid. The notion of digital content was still a distant dream. Now, we have moved from a classic old-school analogue to international content. We are reaching out to viewers across the globe and the kind of stories we are telling are so different. In 2006, when we started developing Delhi Belly, it was so far out there, beyond anything anyone could have dreamt of in India. That kind of content is in demand today.

What were the new things that you discovered about yourself as a writer and a director while working on this project?
I discovered that I’ve a great desire to be in the movie business. As an actor, you tend to think from a narrow perspective. You have your head in a fish pool and your choices and decisions are on the basis of what your PR agency or a few gossip magazines tell you. The moment I stopped paying attention to it, I enjoyed this massive amount of freedom where I could do what I wanted to. I don’t have to worry about anyone inquiring where my career is going. It’s going wherever I damn well choose.

What are your future plans? 
I want to direct more but what will be the next thing is something that I don’t know myself. We get caught in this loop, I want to do it when things are ready. This is how we work in my family. My uncle, filmmaker Mansoor Khan, took four years to make each of his films. Today, filmmakers tend to chase a release date. They look at which hero’s movie opened big last week, cast him, zero in on a release date and figure out the script on the way. That’s not the way to work. 

Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; April 5, 2018)

He swears by the Coen brothers, and just like the acclaimed Hollywood filmmakers, he too has a few quirks. There are two things that put him off — badly made chai and people mistaking his name for Abhinav. The man has acting in his genes; his parents Ramesh and Seema Deo are veteran Marathi and Hindi film actors. Yet, Abhinay was always fascinated by the art of storytelling. In an interesting conversation with BT over a cup of invigorating chai (just the way he likes it), the director talks about his forthcoming black comedy, Blackmail, starring Irrfan, and also tells us why Bollywood needs to take a leap and make more genre-bending cinema. Read on…

Your parents Ramesh and Seema Deo and brother Ajinkya, are actors. Were you never drawn to acting?
Yes, aai, baba and my brother are into acting, but how many members of the family should do the same thing? (laughs!) From the start, I was inclined towards directing as facing the camera never appealed to me. What matters to me is how I can tell a story differently. I wrote my first screenplay at the age of 14 and I did it hoping I could direct it. My writing was always directorially driven. I remember taking the script to my father. He told me, “First finish your studies and come to me when you are 21.” Education was always a priority at home, but it was never just about getting a degree or a job.

It was about knowing and exploring things beyond the surface. They never stopped us from doing what our heart wanted and that killed our desire to rebel. I am an architect first, then an ad filmmaker and then a filmmaker. My brother is a computer engineer. We are academically qualified, and only after we completed our studies we decided to enter the film industry. I guess it’s a very Maharashtrian way of life. I must have accompanied my father to a film set not more than 6-7 times. My parents weren’t really in favour of taking me along on the set.

Coming from a home where your parents were both renowned actors, did you interact with actors from those times?
The atmosphere at home was very simple. My parents weren’t as social or starry. They consciously kept us away from the limelight or filmy parties, but I have fond memories of dadamoni (Ashok Kumar sahab) coming over and having varan bhaat with tup (ghee) in our house. I was little but I also remember Rajesh Khanna visiting us and chatting with my father for long hours in the afternoon. He used to smoke cigarettes and I was very fascinated by his tin of cigarettes and the way he smoked them on our terrace. It was all very informal. Even if we met stars we never met them in the capacity of Bollywood actors. We met them as family. I don’t remember any fancy parties at home like the ones we see today.

Delhi Belly put you on the map. It set a benchmark for dark comedies in India but that genre largely continues to be untapped. Blackmail comes six years after Delhi Belly and it’s a dark comedy, too.
I love that genre. I have grown up with a quirky sense of humour myself and I am a huge fan of the Coen brothers. Their stories are inspired by true events, their characters are realistic and yet their films are so quirky. That is exactly the genre that Blackmail and Delhi Belly are set in too. You are laughing at someone else’s misfortune. Having said that I also love other genres like action, which is why I made the television series 24, Force 2 and Game. Conceptually, I don’t like to repeat the same thing again. I want to explore newer territories and keep coming back to what I love the most. With Blackmail, I feel like I am coming back to the genre I love the most.

Filmmakers who make comedies always stress on the fact that making people laugh is tough business. More so, when you are making a black comedy, it has to be intelligent and funny. Your films also have a good dose of toilet humour. It can be hilarious, but tricky too…
Yes, I enjoy the kind of toilet humour I use in my movies, but I am aware that the writing needs to be clever, not crude. It is a delicate genre. You need to handle it cleverly because if you cross the line then it becomes slapstick. The minute it becomes slapstick, it’s anybody’s game. To do it subtly is the challenge. Dark humour, particularly, is the most difficult to pull off. Slapstick is relatively easy to write or perform. To keep a straight face, do less but show more and make people laugh without doing much is challenging.

Blackmail seems like a zany take on infidelity...
The story is part real and part fiction. The premise is real, but of course, it’s a fictionalised tale of a straightforward middle-class guy, who discovers that his wife is sleeping with someone else. Think about the common man’s predicament. Can he beat up his wife’s lover or the wife? No. So he gets smart. He has an EMI problem so he decides to blackmail his wife’s lover and kill two birds with the same stone. It’s a quirky way of handling a very grim, realistic problem.

An actor like Irrfan must have added his own quirkiness to a story like this?
Irrfan was my first choice. I wanted somebody to look like an aam aadmi and who can act like he doesn’t have the balls to tackle his boss, his own wife or her lover. He is a zindagi se haara hua aadmi. The character needed someone who can deliver with the least amount of lines and expressions on what’s going on inside him, and there was no one better than Irrfan who could pull it off.

While working with Irrfan, did you have the slightest inkling of his illness?
No. Even he didn’t! Nobody knew. It’s so unfortunate. My heart goes out to him and his family. They are fighting this battle well. They are incredibly strong and amazing people. I am sure they will win this fight and will be back soon. I met Irrfan before he left for his treatment. I showed him the film and he loved it. What he has managed to do with the writing is spectacular.

If you had a chance to blackmail someone for a day, who would be that be and why?
I’d blackmail the Coen brothers so that they give me one of their scripts to direct! They can sue me after that but this is what I would love to do (laughs!). You keep thinking about their films long after you’ve watched them and they make you smile. Burn After Reading for instance, was insanely funny and an actor like Brad Pitt played a daft role. Matt Damon does so many crazy cameos too. He does an Ocean’s series and then a Bourne film, where he is the lead star. More Indian actors should be open to doing such stuff.

Do you think Indian actors have a long way to go before they give preference to great scripts over their screen time in a film?
Unfortunately yes. I would appeal to all the Bollywood actors that for every two commercial films you do, do one for yourself or for the craft or the story. What they don’t realise is that the so called ‘mass audience’ that we try and cater to is slowly converting. They want better ideas and better films. Imagine a film like Pad Man releasing 25 years ago. It would not even hit the theatres. Actors like Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan take risks. Ajay Devgn is pushing the envelope as well. An actor is as good as the audience and an audience is as good as the actor. You can’t wait for the audience to get smarter and then do something different. You need to start the trend. If it wasn’t for genre bending films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Dil Chahta Hai and, we would still be making the same kind of cinema today.

Have you ever thought about directing your parents?
My father is 90 and mother is 80, I really hope that one day I’ll be able to direct them and make a film on their love story. That’s been on my mind for a while.

Filmmaker has plenty on his plate, from a quirky comedy to a man-kid drama, a buddy flick, an action comedy and a bang-bang franchise
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 6, 2018)

What was the most amusing reaction to your 2011 black comedy Delhi Belly?
“Boss, after watching your film I can’t drink orange juice anymore!” (Laughs) When I was at Harvard University, some NRI students were excited to have a new words for laundry… ‘lundry’. But for me personally the biggest high was watching my then 85-year-old dad (actor Ramesh Deo) and my son who was 12 laugh together over the same film. Of course, my dad had been skeptical initially, wondering if I really wanted to show this film to my son while my son had asked, “You really want to show this to grandpa?”

Your father, Ramesh Deo, is in his nineties now and still active…
Yes till last year he was actively doing films and commercials. He’s younger than my brother and me put together and I feel so blessed to have parents like mine who are not just inspiring public figures but inculcated in us the right values. I wasn’t launched by my father, that was never an option. I had been told early on that I would have to work really hard for every opportunity and I’m happy for it.

It’s seven years since your first directorial, why haven’t you cashed in on its success with a sequel?
I was pretty gung-ho about a sequel and had even left the film open at the end. But the writer, Akshat Varma, couldn’t come up with an idea that would merit a Part 2. I’ve always wanted to direct another quirky comedy since but not rightaway. Blackmail was the 48th script I read. Actually I read both Force 2 and this one sent by my friend Parveez Sheikh almost simultaneously and knew instantly that I had to make this film. Even Irrfan (Khan) saw the potential in it and said yes immediately. It’s crazy, quirky stuff, with an instant connect with the new-age audience, yet Blackmail is not Delhi Belly. It’s a tad darker perhaps because of the subject.

Have you ever been blackmailed?
Never, emotionally or financially! But as a storyteller and a director, I like to play with emotions, reverse them for creativity and originality. There was this crazy Brit black comedy, Death At A Funeral which really tickled my funny bone even though it revolved around something as morbid as a funeral and a corpse.

While Force 2 was in the making John Abraham had revealed that you already had an idea for Part 3.
Yes, we do have a couple of stories in mind, but after that I got busy with Blackmail and John with Parmanu and now (producer) Vipul Shah, the third part of the Force franchise, will be tied up with his directorial, Namstey England, so Part 3 will have to wait its turn.

And what about another season of the TV series, 24?
We do have an idea for season 3, but today with the digital players in the market, TV is a different ball game altogether and I’m not sure if 24 on GEC (General Entertainment Channel) today would be wise for a channel but there are a lot of people involved, including Fox, and it’s their call.

So what’s the next big thing?
My life is all about movies so some scripts are written, some are being written… I’m working on a crazy action-comedy and there’s also a heartwarming drama revolving around a man and a kid. Then there’s a buddy flick that will make you laugh and cry and a totally Indian, lavishly mounted period-drama. Our weakest area has always been our script. It’s time to stop aping the West, give the world a story that is homegrown and engaging.

Interesting to see a guy who likes quirky comedies as much as action.
Yes, action and humour are not usually on the same platform but since I was a kid I’ve been a huge fan of Jackie Chan and John Woo and an avid gamer who’s played all the action games. And the sense of humour is intrinsic, I’m always cracking jokes on everything around and there was this persistent itch to do an out-and-out action film and Force 2 was born out of the desire. And I can promise you the third instalment of the franchise will be way bigger, the writing already is. I’m not afraid to take risks, rather I thrive on them.

The actor-comedian to co-produce a black comedy with filmmaker Nikkhil Advani that goes on the floors shortly and features him in the titular role of a serial killer
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 30, 2018)

Vir Das is set to foray into film production with a dark comedy titled Hasmukh. Co-produced by Nikkhil Advani, the film will feature the actor-comedian in the titular role of a serial killer. “There haven’t been many Hindi films that tackle dark humour. Nikkhil and I had been discussing this idea since the last two-and-a-half years. Now, we are developing the film and it should roll soon,” Vir told Mirror.

He goes on to joke that it will be a detour for him of sorts as his character in the film is struggling with several things. “Maybe I’ll flashback to my first two-three years in comedy, when none of my shows were working, to play the part. We will shoot the film all over India,” Vir informed, adding that he is also working on two other projects, the first of which, a madcap comedy titled Happy Patel Khatarnaak Jasoos, is also being produced by him. “India needs a bumbling spy comedy in the Austin Powers and You Don’t Mess with Zohan zone. I’m also doing another film by the year-end, which is in the Delhi Belly zone. It’s a two-boy story about one night in Gujarat. It’s backed by an A-list production house but I can’t reveal names as yet.”

Vir, who was last seen in Ajay Devgn’s Shivaay in 2016, said he is glad that the audience has become more receptive to offbeat content. “The mindset has changed. People aren’t just looking at actors as stars but as content creators. I really admire (American actor-comedian) Kevin Hart, who is a standup comedian as well as an A-list Hollywood star. That’s because he had a large fan base that was spending money on his shows and he just brought them over to films,” he signs off.

Aarushi Nigam (BOMBAY TIMES; January 12, 2018)

Akshat Verma’s first film as a writer, Delhi Belly (2011), was a product of his Delhi experiences, even though he grew up in the “bubble of Delhi University’s North Campus” where both his parents were professors. His second film, and first as director, Kaalakaandi, is being watched for the same promise of irreverent realism.That irreverence is very much a part of his psyche,with his honest take on cinema,as well as how the country consumes it. This Kirori Mal College (KMC) alumnus, who was also a part of its celebrated theatre society The Players, talks to us about how censorship holds a country back, why we give cinema too much power and also beat it up for our ills, and, given the bountiful usage of cuss words in his films, having to answer that question on cinema influencing youth (by the way, his Delhi equivalent of the Marathi kaalakaandi would be something like ‘bhasad- square’ or ‘bhasad-ganj’, for those interested). Excerpts:

When we interviewed Saif for Kaalakaandi, he told us that one of his younger co-actors said to him that Saif used to be the ‘flag-bearer of this kind of cinema’ at one point. Do you think ‘this kind of cinema’ needs more flag-bearers?
We need flag-bearers because we need them to get these films made. It’s all very well to want to do these things, but if you can’t get someone to believe in it, to say, ‘I want to make this,’ they’re not going to happen.So, we definitely need people who believe in it enough to say, ‘I’m willing to put my name behind it’. I don’t have any particular leaning towards,that only a certain kind of films should be made. I think all kinds of films have enough room to co-exist. We are just a little bit underrepresented. To modify audience tastes too takes a little bit of time and effort. Also,as our audiences are consuming stories and material from all over the world, the bar is shifting. They see what is possible, and they’re also willing to be open to what is possible here, in terms of storytelling. So, the more we can begin to shift the needle by putting more films out, the more interesting it will be for everyone.

The film got 73 cuts from the CBFC, and then was passed by the FCAT with one cut. Speaking about censorship, there are those in the industry who believe it doesn’t matter who is heading the CBFC as long as the guidelines remain the same. Then there are others who say that under different regimes, the CBFC’s interpretations of those guidelines has been stricter or more flexible. Do you think within the guidelines, there is room for interpretation?
Certainly. It was a different time when Delhi Belly came out, they were very open — ‘We’ll give you an ‘A’ with no cuts’. So certainly, there was interpretation. But when we went this time, the officer who was reviewing the film — it was really sweet, actually — said, ‘I really loved your film.’ I was like, ‘Oh, but why these cuts?’ He said, ‘Who I am in a personal capacity is different versus an official capacity, and I have guidelines to follow. So, it’s out of my hands’. But he also said, ‘Feel free to go to the Revising Committee, or the Tribunal’.

So he gently suggested to us that there is recourse. I also don’t know whether there’s a climate... It’s an individual, case-by-case thing. The interesting thing about the Tribunal was that they were so open to looking at it contextually. They said, ‘We see that there are characters who are talking like this because they are who they are, something’s going on, if someone’s under stress they behave differently’. It wasn’t just a blanket thing that we have to be completely cut and dried about this. So I can’t complain. It was a roller-coaster, for sure, but I can’t complain how it turned out. The very fact that this mechanism (FCAT) exists is a good thing.

So who was the CBFC chief during this time?
It was Pahlaj Nihalani, I think it was the last couple of days of his tenure.

Do you also believe that it’s time the guidelines changed?
Absolutely. This is a mindset that holds a country back. When you bring in censorship, you’re telling people what to think, and it’s a fine line to cross to becoming an autocratic state. You have to be able to trust your citizens to let their minds go where they need to. That’s how change happens, that’s where ideas come from. And as one of the youngest countries in the world right now — we have a population of which 60% is under 25 — it’s really important that we don’t hold them back. Creative people, by design, are meant to question and challenge the way things are. And people who don’t — conservatives — are trying to conserve a way of life. There will always be conflict between these two. As an artist, I want to go and look at things,turn them upside down,and ask, ‘Why not?’. If something is not allowed or not kosher to say, we say, ‘No, I want to see what happens’. Because if you can’t explore it in storytelling, then where can you? And that includes desires which might seem not right, plots that might seem illegal — whatever it is, how far can you go? That’s where great storytelling comes from. Censorship affects us as a nation, in terms of quality of ideas and what we can do as a country.

In an interview, you said about the film industry that there is no point trying to overhaul the system, just try to stay in it and make small changes. What small changes have you, and other filmmakers, have made, and has the sum of their parts made some sort of impact?
It begins to add up. When you see films like a Court, or a Sairat, or Masaan...These are cumulative things and they add up. When you look at a large machine, where do you even begin? And there are so many forces vested in the way that machine functions. I can only be responsible for the kind of work I want to do, I can’t go and dictate to someone, why are you making a certain kind of film, they have as much right to do that. So the kind of stories I choose to tell, how I tell them, the kind of performances, how we hopefully connect to an audience,those are the things I can try to do. And hopefully, if it’s demonstrated once, maybe some other filmmaker says, ‘Hey, it’s possible to do this’. So it’s a domino effect, and hopefully, it spreads.

You’ve also said, while describing how you convince producers of something, that ‘every hustle is a small victory’. How often are you hustling?
Oh, you’re hustling all the time. The difference is that production makes films on Excel sheets, and the creative department makes films on final draft and final cut and all of that. At some point if both these departments come together, it can be a fantastic experience. But there’s always conflict. Money can’t be the only leading way to put a production together. Sometimes, you have to find elasticity between your constraints. My desire is to not throw money at a problem,my desire is to solve it with brain power. Even if you have this much money, how do we make it look like it was shot for much more?

Is making a film like Kaalakaandi just a long series of hustles?
Absolutely. That’s why it takes the time it does, because you’re constantly,in a sense,you’re conning people, right, into believing in what you think is right, to bring them to your point of view,and you do it endlessly till you release. In fact, here we are, trying to hustle the audience to come to our film. And with filmmaking, when you’re done and you go back, you start with zero. It doesn’t accrue, it’s not like staying in a job for a long time where you work your way up. It’s like running a marathon,and just because you’ve run one marathon, the next one isn’t going to be a shorter distance. So it never stops.

In reference to a question asked in the film’s press conference, that it has so many cuss words,and ‘gaaliyan humare youth ko galat tareeke se influence karti hain’.All of us know that the language exists, people talk like this. But we don’t want to watch it in our films, or we only want to put this question to the film fraternity. What does that say about us?
Cricket and cinema are, in a sense, our holy cows. There’s a reverence we have for both, which is why we’re so loving and angry at the same time with them. So,when we see characters on screen,that reverence translates. My desire is to bring them down to the way things are, and I think that conflict and tension comes through because people don’t want to...which is strange, because everywhere, I think people want to recognise themselves in the stories.

But there is always a way of thinking, to say, ‘this can’t be like this’. That same head-in-the-sand reaction when a Slumdog Millionaire comes, and you say, ‘this is not like this’. No, but it is. You talk about it, you face it, and then you fix it. We’re lying to ourselves about the way our country is as well. Because we want to pretend, ‘all is well’. Which is the same thing as saying, ‘Indians are not like this. Hum logon ko AIDS nahin hota hai, hum bade bhale log hain...’ No, we’re as messed up and as good as anybody else. We have to embrace our essential humanity, and all storytelling comes from imperfection. You know, when you’re sitting down to write, one of the things they say is ‘make your characters go through hell’. That’s how you find out what they’re made of. In our storytelling, we protect our characters, nothing bad can happen to them, they can beat up anyone... What’s the point?

And when people say, ‘because of this the youth is going to be affected’, I’m like, show me how. Because then the opposite is also true. If I make, say, a Geet Govindam, then everyone should turn into a saint. That doesn’t happen. So, on one hand, you’re giving cinema too much power, but it becomes a whip to beat the movies with. If we could solve the world’s problems through storytelling, through books, through movies, we would have a perfect world. Storytelling is not a way to change the world, it’s a way to understand the world. S**t will continue to happen, the world will always be like this. But when you see why someone did what, that’s storytelling, whether it’s Ulysses, whether it’s Sophocles, or Deewar. The more flawed characters you have, the more room you have for storytelling.

Your short film Mama’s Boys (2016, a modern interpretation of the Mahabharat) also rubbed the right wing the wrong way. But more than three decades ago, there was Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, about which Naseeruddin Shah, after the whole Padmaavat blow-up, said that the Mahabharat scene couldn’t have been made today. Between then and now, what do you think has changed?
You know, the Mahabharat itself is a political document. Everyone is grey, everyone is sc***ing everyone over, the Pandavas are not really sweet guys, everyone’s stabbing each other. Again, it’s the same reverence — ‘We will now act as if this is a holy document,everyone is holier than thou’. That’s not what that story is. The people who wrote the story about that world recognised that, and that’s why it has survived for so long, because it’s such a truthful, human, document. Now there’s a kind of whitewashing going on, that we’re a certain kind of ideal nation, we’ll whitewash our history, we’ll whitewash our mythology. People who are defending what they’re defending don’t know what they’re defending. When did the Pandavas become gods, number one? If you were to sit down with the people who are making this noise, they can’t defend this. It’s just about whoever shouts the loudest. And whoever is more thoughtful, or trying to make a point, will get drowned out. So again, we’re going away from the essence of who we are.

All this business of changing the names of cities, trying to erase history — we have to embrace the good, the bad, the ugly, everything that has gone on with us historically, because that’s what makes us who we are. It’s like every crazy ex-girlfriend makes you who you are. You don’t want to forget them, because whatever you went through, at whatever point you are in life emotionally, they contributed. So, who we are today as a nation, everyone who’s run amok through us and stayed, it shouldn’t become ‘we’re going to erase you, you never happened. We’ll change the name of this street, change this history’. It’s bulls**t. We are cutting our noses off to spite our faces. There is no place like India in the world, and we are, in a sense, slowly destroying it.

Rinky Kumar (DNA; January 11, 2018)

Akshat Verma shot into the limelight seven years ago with Delhi Belly. Thanks to its whacky humour and unconventional plot, the film was a welcome change for cinegoers. However, rather than jumping onto the bandwagon, Verma, who had penned its story and screenplay, decided to go slow and steady. Now, he is back with Kaalakaandi, which also marks his foray into direction. Starring Saif Ali Khan and an ensemble cast including Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Neil Bhoopalam, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Akshay Oberoi, Shenaz Treasury, and Sobhita Dhulipala, it revolves around three stories set over a course of one night. In a tête-à-tête, the writer-director talks about being inspired by newspaper clippings and why filmmaking is like gambling.

Why did it take you so long to be back with another film?
The way some projects come together is not in your hands. I would prefer working at a much higher frequency. If I could put together a movie every year, I would. But there are so many moving parts to how a film is set up. The primary part is getting the script done. But then, you have to attach a financier, producer and actors. As and when that happens, the project takes shape. Sometimes, despite all these factors coming together, things fall apart. Cinema is as unpredictable a business as any. It’s not a nine-to-five job where you check in every day and stuff happens. It would be nice if it was like that, actually. Kaalakaandi also had a chequered past in terms of how it came together, fell apart and finally happened.

What prompted you to don the director’s hat with Kaalakaandi?
I always intended to write and direct. It’s a matter of how you can make that happen by negotiating with people and bringing them on board to believe in you. Filmmaking is a faith-based enterprise. In the beginning, you are the only one who has any faith in yourself or in the project, then it’s a matter of convincing everybody else to have that degree of belief. Even when you step into direction, it’s the same thing. First, you convince people about the writing and then on how you can execute it with a certain level of technical and emotional finesse.

How did you get the idea for Kaalakaandi?
Its essential core comes from a newspaper snippet that I saw many years ago in the Los Angeles Times. I usually cut out these clippings and paste them in a book because real life seems to be stranger than fiction. You never know when you can take these bits and pieces, connect them and make something happen. This was just sitting in my notebook. After Delhi Belly, I was thinking about what I should do next, when this came to my mind. You start teasing a story out to see where it will go. This one just began to flow.

Over the last seven years, the audience’s tastes have changed as they have been exposed to a wide range of content. Do you think they will receive a black comedy like Kaalakaandi better now?
I’m about to find that out myself, which I think is the reason behind my nervousness. Until the audience and the film collide, you don’t know whether they are going to get along or not. As a director, you do what is true to the characters, and you tell their story. Whether it finds an audience is something that no one can predict. That’s why this business is like gambling. Certainly, the landscape has changed in terms of what and how the viewers are consuming. Today, we have access to streaming services and there has been an explosion in the kind of stories even we are telling domestically. So, the parameter of what is acceptable has broadened.

While Delhi Belly was set in the capital, your forthcoming film is based in Mumbai. How do these cities represent the internal chaos of the on-screen characters?
The DNA of large cities in the world is the same. City dwellers are united by the fact that they reside in metros. Ninety per cent of all metropolises, which have a few million people, are constructed in a similar way, including the energy that they possess and the way they are. The difference between Delhi and Mumbai is that the former has room to expand and grow into a vast, spread out city. The latter, on the other hand, is more packed, so it engenders a different kind of energy. As a result, you can’t buy your privacy. You may reside in a fancy building but when you step out, people from diverse backgrounds and classes will interact with each other. The paths of two people — one who is driving a Mercedes, the other riding a scooter will cross. And this is what gives Mumbai certain fission, the forced contact that brings us together and makes it so much more interesting. In many places, the rich can insulate themselves but in Mumbai, you can’t get around, which is lovely. So, in a way, it is a more egalitarian city.

Was it difficult to handle an ensemble cast in your directorial debut?
Saif Ali Khan was the first person to come on board. But when I sent the script out to people who were on top of my list, everyone agreed almost immediately. Once things started to flow, the dominoes fell rather quickly. In a way, the universe compensated for putting me through hell (laughs). It was a challenge to orchestrate stuff, but that’s normal for any film. We worked hard and shot within 42 days, which is pretty quick for a film in India because here, we tend to have longer schedules. 

How do you perceive the business of cinema right now especially with so many avenues?
I hope these multiple channels provide a sense of adventure in terms of the kind of stories that we want to tell. And that will happen for sure. There is a lot of talent that’s not getting the avenues to showcase its prowess. These channels give them that opportunity.

How did you make your transition from being a journalist to a copywriter to a writer-director?
Journalism was fascinating. It was non-fiction but there was a sense of drama and storytelling in it. Then, I became a copywriter. I was jumping to whatever jobs that would pay my bills and help me do what I enjoyed the most — which was writing. It was a good training ground and a long drawn-out journey, but I was always headed in this direction.

Lasyapriya Sundaram (BOMBAY TIMES; January 4, 2018)

Kunaal Roy Kapur’s breakout performance in Delhi Belly (2011) catapulted him into the limelight. Soon after, the actor played significant roles in films like Nautanki Saala (2013), Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013) and Action Jackson (2014). Now, he is teaming up for the second time with Delhi Belly writer, Akshat Verma, who is making his directorial debut with Kaalakaandi. The dark comedy also stars Saif Ali Khan, Sobhita Dhulipala, Vijay Raaz and Deepak Dobriyal. In a candid chat with BT, Kunaal talks about how not being a big star is liberating for an actor as it allows him to take up a variety of roles, and how despite his family being a part of the industry, they don’t rely on each other professionally. Excerpts...

The roles you have essayed so far have been diverse, but you haven’t really limited your career for the lack of lead roles…
If you get an opportunity to choose roles, you should pick grey characters and not the heroic ones. It’s more interesting to watch grey characters on screen. However, sometimes, people might have difficulty in understanding that an actor is just playing a character and not endorsing bad behaviour. It happens mostly with superstars, who wield immense influence on their fans. In my case, I don’t need to worry about it because I am not at that level. I can play the villain, the lead or even a character role for that matter. In fact, that’s what’s liberating for an actor like me.

Your made your acting debut with a role in the television series, Just Mohabbat. Looking back, how would you gauge the way your career has evolved?
I never harboured any aspiration of a great career in acting. So, every role that I can sink my teeth into is a bonus for me. I hope that I have a long career. I know that there will be some standout performances and some crappy ones as well. Having said that, I am happy with the way things have shaped up so far. Not having a career in the movies would have been far worse.

There was a lot of brouhaha around the profanity-laden dialogues in Delhi Belly. Kaalakaandi also has a lot of cuss words being thrown around. Do you think it’s an intrinsic part of Akshat’s scripts?
Some people categorized Delhi Belly as a film which only has abusive language. Films reflect how people would respond in a given situation. Often, cuss words come out of our mouths in certain scenarios. Isn’t that what dialogue writing is all about? When cuss words are used, it’s scene and character-appropriate. As a writer, Akshat is just staying true to the situation. In the process, he is neither encouraging nor discouraging the use of bad language. In many of our films, the dialogues often ring untrue because they are catering to a family audience and so, cannot be true to reality. However, if you are making a film for an adult audience, the writer should be free to write the way that best conveys reality.

There were reports that the Censor Board wanted 72 cuts in the film...
I think Kaalakaandi was one of the last films that went into certification when Mr Pahlaj Nihalani was at the helm of affairs. We were in a hurry to release the film and so, we went to the Tribunal directly and got the certification.

Kaalakaandi is a dark comedy. It’s a genre that has not been explored here as much as in the West. Why do you think that’s the case?
There are many kinds of comedies that Indians don’t take to, like self-deprecating comedy or the comedy of discomfort. Also, I think we struggle with self-criticism. People laugh at stereotypes, but if the comedy is accusatory or critical, we get sensitive. In a dark comedy, you are laughing at an unfortunate event. If one were to make a joke out of death, it might not be acceptable to many. But with the younger audiences being exposed to a variety of content online, tastes are changing. Kaalakaandi is darker than Delhi Belly, but it’s not blue comedy.

Considering your two brothers (Siddharth Roy Kapur and Aditya Roy Kapur) and your sister-in-law (Vidya Balan) are all associated with films, would you call yourselves a bonafide film family?
I think so. Many people say, ‘Oh, now they have it easy’. What people don’t realise is that I have been part of this for close to 20 years. So, it hasn’t happened overnight. Vidya has had her own journey. She started working in films after doing commercials and TV. Thereon, she went from strength to strength. Aditya also started with television. Siddharth worked his way into films after doing corporate jobs like selling washing powder. We are proud to be working in the film industry in different capacities, but we don’t rely on each other professionally. Our family has not been in the movies for generations, but we found ourselves here and have now become a film family.

Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 10, 2017)

When we meet the man behind the big belly from Delhi Belly, Kunaal Roy Kapur at an Andheri café, he’s wolfing down a salad. His new frame to accommodate his present projects — a web series that takes a dig at the skittish outlook of those in the business of social media (Going Viral), an “unconventional comedy” alongside Saif Ali Khan (Kaalakaandi), and his first lead in an upcoming supernatural thriller. About this altered shape, he quickly says, “I haven’t lost it all yet.” The reason for the transformation, he says, was “to become a healthier person”.

“People see me as a comic actor. To break out of that, there was effort needed from my end,” says the 38-year-old, who was requested by the director of his next film to shape up to slip into character. Ironically, Kapur’s most notable performance in the 2011 black comedy Delhi Belly had him shoot up the scales to 118kgs. But his much-lauded performance, he remembers, didn’t translate in sizeable projects. “By the time the film released, I had lost the weight I’d gained for the character and had also shaved my beard. So, when they called me for auditions, I didn’t match the fat bearded guy they had seen in the film and wanted to cast,” he laments.

But Kapur, who started out with theatre at 12 and even assisted Boman Irani as a photographer, says he’s never had a lull, even while he didn’t always work with big banners. Though he agrees, “In every actor’s life, there are months when you scratch your head and wonder what’s in store and for every break you get, there are 20 things that fizzle out.” He swipes his phone to add, “I have to check my own IMDB for the films I’ve done,” says the actor who made his big screen debut in the 2007 comedy Panga Na Lo — a film that conjures a disturbing memory. The actor booked first-day-first-show tickets at Metro for his entire family but on arriving at the theatre, the show was cancelled.

“It was embarrassing because old aunts had come for it too,” says Kapur who later starred in Loins of Punjab Presents, Nautanki Saala and even directed The President Is Coming (adapted from the play of the same name) — a film that “released on the fateful day of 26-11” — the night of the Mumbai terror attacks which naturally affected the film’s box office. Another promising performance that went unnoticed was the partially bald lawyer he played in Azhar last year. His curious makeover into a middle-aged Hyderabadi rendered him literally unrecognisable. But this doesn’t bother him one bit.

“I love that nobody recognized me. If I can go through my career with roles where no one recognizes me, I will be the happiest guy.” Despite scattered successes and misses, Kapur’s survival is often pegged by some as a blatant example of nepotism, given that his celebrated brothers — former UTV boss Siddharth Roy Kapur and actor Aditya Roy Kapur — have well-entrenched roots in the industry. But Roy refutes this belief. “I automatically gain a status on the basis of whose brother I am but I don’t gain any work because of it,” he says, adding that the siblings often discuss films but have never considered collaborating. “I’m not saying it won’t happen in the future but we’ve never had conversations such as — ‘this a project we should do together’ or ‘you act in it’ or ‘you produce it’.”

Ahead of his upcoming horror film The Final Exit, the actor says that he isn’t scared of the limited success the genre has garnered in India. “What’s the worst that could happen? It won’t do well. But I’ve had films which haven’t done well and I’ve survived and I’m still acting,” he says, adding that his upcoming thriller packs in “suspense, mystery and atmosphere”. “If horror is done well, it can work. But when you think horror in India, you think Ramsay, Vikram Bhatt… where bhoots come and do things.” In Delhi Belly writer Akshat Verma’s Kaalakaandi, he plays a character which cannot be billed as funny but “is put into shitty situations”. “Falling down is called slapstick because you’re laughing at a person’s pain. But when you make a person crumble and fall — through conversation or situations — it’s a version of the same.”

An alumnus of G D Somani School, Kapur dropped out of St Xavier’s College to break into TV with the coming-of-age drama Just Mohabbat. But soon, he realised the content didn’t interest him and consciously “kept away from TV” ever since. His latest web series that caricatures the life of those in digital agencies, however, is the kind he enjoys now. “It talks about the times we live in — driven by social media and online popularity — it’s frivolous and ludicrous content,” he says about the show created by comedian Anuvab Pal, adding,“It’s also a social commentary without calling attention to it.”

His interest in the space is validated by the medium’s growing audience.“Why people aren’t showing up at theatres has to do with the multiple options that they have sitting at home.” Aware of the pitfalls of disappointing the millennial internet audience, Kapur feels that while “they may be unforgiving; they always give you another opportunity”.

Neha Maheshwri Bhagat (BOMBAY TIMES; November 15, 2016)

There is a different type of Hit brewing in the Hindi film industry lately. There have been eight films this year and three of them (NEERJA, KAPOOR & SONS, PINK) are these alternative hit types. These films dont find much appreciation across the country but find huge appreciation concentrated at handfull of centres and most of these centres are the biggest in the country. The average ticket price in these centres is now high enough to get a hit even though footfalls are not high though of course the cost of these films also has to be under 50 crore, prefrebaly 25-35 crore to be a Hit though 50 crore can also be recovered.

BARFI, the biggest hit out of these, went to another level and even crossed 100 crore nett though that was through clever distribution which would have added 8-10 crore. Still the film going that far was a bit of fluke and this won't be repeated very often. It could have also been due to the presence of a star like Ranbir Kapoor but normally these types dont really work with the target audience with starcasts and examples are many from HAIDER to BOMBAY VELVET to DIL DHADAKNE DO to BAAR BAAR DEKHO. Below are a list of HIT films (only HITS listed) which have a 90% apprx contribution from multiplexes and around 60-65% business is coming from Mumbai and Suburbs, Pune, Delhi NCR / Chandigarh, Hyderbad, Bangalore and Kolkata.

1. Barfi - 1,05,56,00,000
2. Piku - 78,38,00,000
3. Neerja - 71,76,00,000
4. Kapoor & Sons - 69,37,00,000
5. Pink - 65,00,00,000 (expected)
6. Queen - 61,47,00,000
7. Kahaani - 57,81,00,000
8. Delhi Belly - 54,83,00,000
9. Badlapur - 49,62,00,000
10. Vicky Donor - 41,00,00,000

What is also common with all these films is that they only have a life as long as they are on the theatres as all were disasters on televisions. This is because of no all India appreciation and the little audience which does appreciate have seen them in the theatres.

Note - The television result of PINK is not known but its box office demographic is no different from Neerja so a similar result is expected on television. Of course there is a chance it can surprise but its very minimal.