Prashant Singh (HINDUSTAN TIMES; August 7, 2020)

Bollywood hasn’t been at work since March-end, when the nationwide Coronavirus lockdown was enforced. But slowly, things are changing. While actor Akshay Kumar is set to start shooting for Bellbottom in the UK, others are likely to follow suit from September onward with safety norms in place, one such being working with smaller units.

Director Anees Bazmee says it’s “not going to be easy.” “Pruning the crew size and working with a small-ish team is going to be a huge challenge. How do you do it? Where do you start? Nowadays, even actors come with a big entourage,” he says, while recalling how for the shoot of Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998), a unit of just 40-45 people — including actors, their teams and the crew — had travelled to Switzerland.

“Woh zamaana hi kuch aur tha,” Bazmee says, adding, “We all managed to work beautifully with a smaller team. But things are different now. At any given point, there are so many people on the set. Also, with newer technology and ambitious storytelling style, there’s no option but to have more people on the set.” He explains, “For instance, earlier, if we would have three people — including the DoP — with the camera, we now have three to four cameras and five to six people with each one of them.”

However, Bazmee admits that ensuring a smaller unit is “going to affect a lot of people badly.” “If you have to retain just 65 out of 200 technicians, imagine how many of them would have no work. Since the real economic impact of the lockdown will be felt even more in the coming months, things will become extremely difficult. But, you have to adhere to the guidelines,” says the filmmaker, who will restart work on his next, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, later this year.

Anees Bazmee takes stock of his 25 yrs as director from Lonavala residence
Hiren Kotwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 21, 2020)

For over two months now, Anees Bazmee has been at his Lonavala bungalow with his family. The writer-director shares that he has “never spent so much time at home with wife and kids” as during the lockdown brought on by the Coronavirus outbreak. He had packed up the Lucknow schedule of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 before several industry bodies called for a halt on production from March 19 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced nationwide lockdown on March 24.

“We were shooting with a huge unit and even though the numbers of positive cases were small then, I discussed the matter with my producers (Bhushan Kumar and Murad Khetani) and we voluntarily decided to wrap up the schedule. I returned to Mumbai on March 14 and the following day, came to Lonavala with my family,” he informs.

Before this, the director of films like Welcome, Welcome Back and Mubarakan would head to the bungalow with his team only to write for a week or 10 days. Admitting that he has learnt a lot during his stay at the property this time, he says, “I’ve realised that one doesn’t need too many things to live and should value those who work for you, from the house help to the chauffeur. I think after this, people will become more human than before,” he says fervently.

Mention industry guidelines for shooting with a smaller unit when they return to work and Anees recalls that during the Ajay Devgn and Kajol-starrer Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, which released in 1998, only a team of 40, comprising the actors, their staff and the crew, went to Switzerland for the shoot. “Now, every department has so many people. I hope that can be curtailed,” he avers.

The year marks Anees’s 25th year as a director. How does he look back at his innings, which began five years earlier as a writer? “I feel fortunate and blessed. Before that, I was assisting, ghost-writing, editing and even working in the sound and art departments. So, I don’t see whether I’ve completed 25 years or 40. Seeing my life and work, I know my today is better than my yesterday,” he smiles.

Given that sequels will always have an advantage over other formats and he hasn’t made thrillers in a while, has he thought of taking his Ajay Devgn, Akshaye Khanna and Urmila Matondkar-starrer Deewangee ahead? “It’s on my mind, but I haven’t found a good story,” Anees admits, adding that whenever they meet, Ajay tells him the same. “Ajay is a dear friend and if I think of something suitable, we’ll definitely team up. As a director, he was my first hero in Hulchul.”

Madhureeta Mukherjee (BOMBAY TIMES; January 7, 2020)

It takes a lot of courage to make a film based on a historical figure. It needs time, patience, passion and of course, big monies to see an ambitious idea make its way to the silver screen. Ajay Devgn, a supremely talented actor and sharp producer, who marks his 100th film with Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, stresses that India might not have the big budgets of Hollywood, but it has talent galore. And he swears by his sword that with this film, he wants to prove that. Read on…

In 2002, you did The Legend Of Bhagat Singh. What made you want to revisit the pages of history again, and this time, explore the life of warrior Subedar Tanhaji Malusare, a military leader in the army of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj?
When I played Bhagat Singh, I remember that the film lingered with me for a long time. And it stays with you because they were great people and you know that you can’t be like them. You wonder what his mindset was and what was he thinking when he made those sacrifices. When you watch a film, you can even assume for a moment that this is fictional, but to sit back and think that someone actually did all this in reality, is unthinkable. When I heard about Tanhaji and the way he fought for the country, I realised that if he wasn’t there, the map of India would have changed. He became a local hero. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is known across the country for his heroism. Tanhaji is known mostly in Maharashtra and what we know of him is mostly through school textbooks, and that, too, is limited to probably a small paragraph. It is also not part of textbooks across all boards of education. My children didn’t study about him in school, some of us did.

The fact that he was a warrior whose victories and sacrifice is not as known and celebrated as many others – did this draw you to the subject? You are apparently planning to make more films on unsung heroes? So, these heroes could be from any region, any part of our country, right?
Yes! Today, we are talking about Tanhaji from Maharashtra, tomorrow, it could be a hero from Punjab or Rajasthan. In fact, they will not necessarily belong to only a certain era, we could have unsung heroes from this era, too. There could be heroes who didn’t go to the battlefield, but have done something commendable for our society. There are so many such stories that are relevant in today’s times. That’s how the idea came about, and I want to take stories of such heroes to the audience around the world. We have so many such inspiring stories in India. I am not saying that after watching the film you will become like Tanhaji, you cannot. But, at least, we will know how much effort and pain has gone into our struggle for freedom, so that we learn to respect it. The other part is, when we make films, we try to make commercial movies with a great screenplay, which will intrigue and grip you. So, when I heard the script, I felt that even if I was making a fictional drama on a subject of this nature, the story I would be looking for would be something like this. Even if you treat this like a fiction drama, it works perfectly.

Such films require scale, budget and huge investment in terms of the kind of time, and the blood and sweat spent on it…
I have always done this in my productions, right from films like Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) and Raju Chacha (2000). There is always a ‘first’ that we have done in the industry. In the film Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha in 1998 (which was 50 per cent my production), it was the first time that a film had a musical promotional video. Back then, there was no such trend of promotional song videos. Now, everyone is doing it. I was always technically very strong, thanks to my father. I have always strived to take things notches higher. Yes, for a film like this you need heavy budgets, but if you are sensible, smart and invest time wisely (we have been working on this film for four years and we shot for 8-9 months), you are sorted. If you are smart, then you don’t need that kind of budgets. This is what I want to prove with this film, that you don’t need big budgets to make big films, you need to be smart and intelligent. The budget of this film would be like any other big-budget film being made here. It’s not that we have gone haywire with budgets, it’s like any other big-scale movie. When you see the quality of the film, you will know that it is the kind of stuff you have not seen being done in India before. The kind of 3D we have in the film, it is what you would have seen in Avengers or other Hollywood films. And it is all done by Indians. Except, for 2-3 action experts, who were with me during Shivaay, too, as I am comfortable with them when it comes to action, everything else has been done here, within our budget.

A great hero needs an antagonist of that stature. Whose idea was it to cast Saif Ali Khan in the role of Udaybhan Rathod, who headed the Mughal army in the battle against the Marathas at Sinhagad Fort?
It was my idea to get him on board. I have been watching the film during post-production, and from what I have seen, Saif is outstanding in the film. He has taken over the film. We needed someone like him to play this character, who is quirky, evil and has a personality that can stand tall in front of the protagonist. You see, in a film like Avengers, too, the villain is stronger than all of them put together. Everyone knows that Tanhaji was a great warrior, I don’t have to try too hard to show that as we are aware of his bravery. I need to show who is he fighting with, and what makes him so great. The antagonist needed to have a powerful presence on screen and we have really worked on Saif’s look and style. Earlier, we thought of casting someone new to play Udaybhan. Then it struck me that if we took someone who has played a villain before, then it would not be as exciting. Saif brings a certain personality to the character which it needed.

What was Saif’s reaction when he first heard the script?
He read the script, loved it and said, ‘Give me five great scenes and I will do it.’ Eventually, he had about 20, so I guess it all worked out well.

Sometime around 2015, you had said that we think our audience has changed, and hence, the industry is taking drastic steps and trying all kinds of cinema. Now, five years later, do you believe that the audience has truly evolved in their sensibilities, and they are greedy for anything that entertains or moves them?
Yes, the audience has evolved, and they are accepting every kind of cinema. They are liking the kind of films that I believed in during the 90s. People said that I was stupid to do films like Thakshak (1999), Zakhm (1998) and Raincoat (2004). Today, every actor is doing it and it’s working. With multiplexes, that section of the audience is coming in and actors are willing to do all kinds of cinema. It is a great phase for the industry, and we are at a point where we can make what we believe in. In the 90s, actors could not think about switching genres, today, it is accepted.

And such cinema is not viewed as offbeat anymore…
Cuts in…Now, we call it cinema that is ‘high on content’. Even when we are making commercial films, we need to ensure that it has the right kind of drama and sensibility that will appeal to the audience. You can’t put something stupid or mediocre out there and think that it will work. Just because you have a big film (with a big cast), it does not mean that the content does not matter.

The monitor lizard ‘ghorpad’ angle of the story, which is an important part of Tanhaji Malusare’s tale, is disputed among historians. Like what often happens with most stories rooted in history, there is never a consensus on various facts. Filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker recently said that he has never met two historians who agree on all facts.
Different books could state different facts, too. If you are specifically talking about the ghorpad, I know that people might disagree, as scientifically, it does not seem possible. We have followed history, kept all the references, but you have to watch the film to see what we have done with it.

The descendants of Tanhaji Malusare have raised certain objections. Has there been any conversation with them, and will you have a screening for them before release?
Well, we have to justify it and you have to explain it to them. The CBFC is very sensible, and wherever they had a doubt, we gave them all the references required. I don’t need to show the film to his descendants because they have been a part of the shoot. There was an argument about where Tanhaji came from, so we have taken the proof from the family and given it to the CBFC. When you are making a film based on history, you are always walking a thin line. We have to dramatise the story…how else will we tell the story? In history books, you won’t find things like…what did Savitribai (his wife) tell Tanhaji when he was leaving for the battle? So, we have to write that, and fictionalise it. That’s a part of storytelling. Otherwise, there is no screenplay, and the whole story is just one chapter.

This marks your 100th film. Would you say that it’s quite an epic way to celebrate such a landmark moment in your career? From 1991 to now, what would you say has changed the most about the film industry and about you?
Honestly, I didn’t realise it was my 100th film, until Om Raut (director of this film) pointed it out. It is a mere coincidence. Today, the industry has become very professional and if I were to compare it to the time when I had started out, it is like two different people. It is like two different industries. Earlier, it wasn’t so professional, of course, it was a lot of fun, which I miss. But now the stakes are too high, and you can’t afford to take it easy. Earlier, we would chill for hours and do masti on set when the shoot was not happening. All that has changed. Now, you have to complete the schedule on time as everything is on a tight budget. Every hour costs money. Personally, I have become more responsible. We used to do 15 films at a time, but now, we are so involved in every project, hence, we are more focused. There is media pressure, too, earlier we never read a review or did promotions of this kind. The film would be slated for release and we were told about it, as simple as that.

You have always spoken about how we need to give the audience that cinematic experience that we often see in Hollywood films…
Yes, I want to share that vision with the audience, and personally, I love doing it, too. I want to show people that, so what if we don’t have the budgets that the West has, we have the talent here. As the budgets scale up, we can do more, but right now, with what we have, we can do what Hollywood does in 2,000 crores. For Tanhaji, playing the character was not as tough as it was being a producer on the project.

Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; February 4, 2019)

An ensemble cast of big stars, lavish budgets and masala laced with comedy — Anees Bazmee’s movies tick all the boxes. The writer-director of films like No Entry (2005), Welcome (2007), Singh Is Kinng (2008) and Welcome Back (2015) has had a smashing success with multi-starrers. Yes, there have been a few like No Problem and Thank You, which have come a cropper, but his success ratio outweighs the failures.

After his last directorial Mubarakan (2017), the filmmaker is set to helm his next, Pagalpanti, toplined by John Abraham, Anil Kapoor and Ileana D’Cruz along with Pulkit Samrat, Kriti Kharbanda and Arshad Warsi. Here, the director tells us about his upcoming film, his penchant for multi-starrers and why he is serious about comedy.

What is Pagalpanti about?
Pagalpanti is full of madness. It’s a hard-core commercial film with songs, dialogue, and zabardast family comedy. There will be no vulgarity because that has never been a part of my films. It will be shot in London non-stop for 50 days minimum. It is about John’s journey and the other people involved in it. He will be seen in a different role as he is doing an out-and-out comedy. There’s Anil with whom I share good tuning. We have worked together in so many films — No Entry (2005), Welcome (2007), Welcome Back (2015), to name a few. I have also scripted his Deewana Mastana (1997), Laadla (1994), etc. This must be our 11th or 12th collaboration. Honestly, we have stopped counting!

Is the film releasing this year?
I think so, because by April-May, InshaAllah, we will be able to finish the film, after which the producers will decide on the release date. They did want to announce it in advance, but as a maker, it puts the burden on you because you have to finish it by then. That’s when the chalega attitude creeps in especially, if the work is not done according to your satisfaction. I didn’t want that. I told them to not worry about the date. In the earlier days, when we made films, we used to see it and if there was something which we felt was not up to the mark, we would re-shoot it. Though I have never done that, one should have the liberty of improving it and if that takes a couple of months one should get that breathing space.

Most of your films are multi-starrers, is that deliberate?
It’s not that I want to make only multi-starrers. Every time I finish a film, I feel I should make a movie with one hero and heroine. Having said that, multi-starrers are not easy to make, which is why you don’t see everybody making them. You can say that multi cast films are my forte. I have a good tuning with all my actors, aur main aram se multi-starrer bana leta hoon. Uska maza kuch aur hai. Moreover, the seven-eight actors that I have in my film have important roles, whether it was Welcome, Welcome Back, No Entry or now Pagalpanti. It’s not that I set out to make them, it just happens. The story of Pagalpanti is such that it needs many actors, that’s all. 

People have come to expect a certain kind of comedy from you. Does that put pressure on you?
Whenever your films do well, and you have made a name for yourself, people have expectations from you. That does put pressure on you, but it’s good because it means logon ko aapse ummeed hai. I don’t feel the pressure because if you have seen my work, I make one film in a period of two years. When I am working on it, my entire concentration is on it, there are no distractions. I use my experience of over 50 films  — have written several movies and directed about 10-12 — and the knowledge that I have.

Many of your films have done well at the box-office but they haven’t won critical acclaim. What do you have to say about it?
Honestly, main chahta hoon that critics also love my films, but I can’t make films only for those 20-25 people. It’s sad that critics kind of look down upon comedy, which is such a difficult genre. But these movies are big hits. When I meet people they tell me they haven’t seen a better comedy than No Entry, which released over a decade ago, and that they watch it even today. So, I feel films like these will become cult movies in the future. I am sure even the critics enjoy it when they watch it! Still, I hope I make a film that is liked by the audiences and the critics.

What kind of comedy do you like?
I like situational comedies. I always tell my actors that they should not act in a funny way or do comedy, that will happen on its own. If you have seen my films, I don’t go over the board, where people are climbing and falling to create laughter, there is no slapstick comedy. I don’t believe in that. The situation is comical. For instance in the climax of No Entry, three people are hanging from a cliff and are about to die, in the Welcome climax, the entire house with all the characters in it is on the verge of falling off — these are serious things, there is no buffoonery — but the situation leads to comedy.

There are reports about you directing a college love story with Kartik Aaryan?
Chal raha hai. I want to make films in different genres, not just comedy. I have in the past made a romantic film like Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998) and a suspense thriller like Deewangee (2002). I am comfortable writing all the genres, but I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. I do a film which I enjoy at that point.

David Dhawan has been remaking his old films like Judwaa and now Coolie No 1. Have you thought about revisiting any of your earlier movies?
I have some 15 original stories in mind and I still feel like a newcomer. There is a lot of excitement now with Pagalpanti. I am not just a director, but also a writer. If start remaking my old movies, what do I do with the new ideas that I have?

What is happening to the sequel of No Entry and Aankhen?
You will have to check with Boney Kapoor (producer) about the No Entry sequel. But Aankhen part 2 is happening. It has a big star cast, and I will start the film this year once I am done with Pagalpanti.

With two big movies on the cards, television’s favourite sidekick is all set to go mainstream
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 27, 2018)

The last time Sunil Grover aka television’s Gutthi visited his native place — in Mandi Dabwali, a mofussil town in Haryana — he dropped in at the Durga temple he frequented with his father as a child. “I loved jumping up to ring the bell,” remembers the 40-year-old actor comedian when we meet him at a Goregaon five-star. However, this time, Grover had to visit the temple incognito, on account of his celebrityhood, and he wrapped a scarf around his face for anonymity. His efforts were futile as he was spotted by a local and had to be rushed to an uncle’s house nearby. “Within minutes, the whole town had assembled outside my uncle’s home. People showed up with their families and the crowd kept growing.” To avoid the frenzy, Grover had to leave for Delhi right away. “I often wonder if I am really the man they are after — the actor they love on TV, the man who makes them happy with his jokes and gags. It’s still so surreal,” he says.

In the last two years, Grover has rewritten his narrative. The struggling actor from Chandigarh began as a voiceover artiste, before tasting TV stardom as the eccentric salwar kameez-clad Gutthi. Grover will soon be seen in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Chhuriyaan along with Dangal star Sanya Malhotra, and in Ali Abbas Zafar’s period-drama Bharat, headlined by Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra. But he hasn’t forsaken the medium that made him a star — his solo comedy show Dhan Dhana Dhan continues to rake in high TRPs. Despite his public spat with co-actor Kapil Sharma, he doesn’t deny that the shows the two collaborated on (Comedy Nights with Kapil and The Kapil Sharma show) made him a household name. He does sheepishly admit, however, that the real reason he has stayed away from the media is “to avoid digging up the Kapil conversation again”. “I am grateful every day that I managed to get a ticket to the circus. The world of madness has given me lots of love,” says the actor, refusing the cookies on the table. Bhardwaj requires him to loose six kilos to slip into the character of a Rajasthani man.

Till date, Grover has played female characters “of all age-groups and sizes” on TV. Even before Gutthi, the satirical star left audiences in splits in another drag avatar — as Chutki on the comedy series Mad in India. This, he feels, has enabled him to be more sensitive towards the fairer sex. “One thing I’m sure of now is that women are better than men; they multi-task, are more intelligent. I strongly believe that men are programmed to ruin things only so that women would have to stay busy”.

Grover’s 20-year journey to stardom began with a bite-sized role in Anees Bazmee’s 1998 blockbuster Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha. Bazmee wanted to cast a local to play a chatty barber who accidentally clips a customer’s (played by Devgn) beloved moustache in a scene. Grover was recommended for the two-scene part by the Drama School at Punjab University.

When Grover, then 20, arrived on set, Bazmee chatted with him briefly and then completely rewrote the dialogues of what went on to be one of the funniest scenes in the film. “That one scene brought relief to my concerned family. At that time, my father and my uncle were insisting that I submit an employment form at the railway station. But after seeing me on the big screen, my parents thought that if I could bag a film living in Chandigarh, I would surely make it in Bombay — the land of Amitabh Bachchan and other super-humans.” That Grover’s banker father played the harmonica and dabbled in street theatre — but had to decline the job of a radio announcer “because his father didn’t approve of it” — perhaps made him more encouraging when his son declared his creative pursuits.

Despite bagging a blink-and-a-miss part, Grover remembers going to watch Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha with his entire family, only to be stumped to see that he had been credited as ‘Surinder Grover’ in the film. Years later, when magazines would do features on Grover, their lead-in copy would state that the actor had changed his name from ‘Surinder’ to ‘Sunil’. “Surinder is my chacha’s name. And if I had to change my name, I’d pick something cooler, like David or Aarav. Every third person is called Sunil,” he belly-laughs.

Moving to Mumbai to try his hand in the entertainment business, Grover’s earliest memories are of sharing a flat with a friend and fending for himself. “I didn’t mind the cooking but I hated washing clothes.” In fact, his second acting stint — in Rajkumar Santoshi’s The Legend of Bhagat Singh was a role he took up only because he “won’t have to wash clothes for three months”—the duration he was required to stay on location in Pune. “On that set, I mimicked everyone, including Santoshi himself,” he reminisces. For lack of alternatives or perhaps because of his unique talent, Grover found his feet in voiceovers in the early 2000s. “When you start from zero, everything feels like a high-point,” says the actor who remembers the first Rs 500 he made from a voiceover gig at BR Studios. Soon, Grover was doing as many as six voiceovers a day — mimicking everyone from actors to cricketers. “I could do 150 different voices and often mimicked the Khans to entertain people in the studio.” But acting jobs were still hard to come by and the TV stints he did bag didn’t stick. “But I’m stubborn. I knew I would make it one way or another,” says the actor who also pursued theatre briefly and featured in adaptations of Hamlet and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, “but it was the funny stuff that seemed to work better”.

Today, the actor has a whopping five million followers on Twitter but doesn’t care to capitalise on his ‘influencer’ tag. “Social media has changed the way the industry works. Everyone has an opinion and finds it necessary to express it. But the energy and love from a live performance is a better high than a social media chat,” says the actor who also plans a world tour later this year where he will reprise his iconic avatars on stage. Where can we catch him live? “From Punjab to Auckland,” he says.

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 30, 2015)

Ajay Devgn, who is known for his comic timing and his brooding, intense performances, now wants to be taken seriously as a romantic hero too. He has given the nod to an unusual love story written by Anees Bazmee, who will also direct the film.

"I represent the common man and look like one too. So I can't play a Jumping Jack who looks like a Greek God. When I pranced around with a beautiful woman in a love song, the men in the audience felt the woman on screen was out of their reach, which is why romantic films never worked for me," reasons Ajay.

The exception was Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha in '98, a remake of the Meg Ryan-Kevin Kline starrer, French Kiss. Anees Bazmee, who made his directorial debut with the action thriller, Hulchul, featuring Ajay and Kajol, remembers that when he offered the couple this love story, they laughed him off.

"Ajay wondered if I'd lost my mind. How could I expect him to play a thief who stole from the leading lady and she still fell in love with him? He came on board, hesitantly, constantly telling me the film would not work. It was a superhit," Anees reminisces with a laugh.

Four years later, the duo collaborated on a psychological thriller, Deewangee, inspired by the Hollywood film, Primal Fear, with Ajay stepping into Richard Gere's shoes. "So when I thought of a film with Ajay, I presented him with a crime thriller. In fact, over the last three years, I have narrated half-a-dozen stories to him and he turned them all down, finally telling me that he wanted to do a romance along the lines of Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha and I should write one keeping him in mind," says Anees.

He obliged, and this time got the go-ahead from Ajay. After Welcome Back, Anees will take a break from direction but will put three films scripted by him on the floors. The first is the love story featuring Ajay, the second a comedy and the third a crime thriller. Confirming this, Ajay adds, "Anees was a well-known screenplay writer in the '90s. We did three films together. I've rejected many more projects than what I have filmed with him. But we will do a film together soon. He has approached me with some great scripts and I have finalised one."