Showing posts with label Sanjay Chopra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sanjay Chopra. Show all posts
Sanjay Chopra and I almost got divorced writing Saali Mohabbat-Tisca Chopra
9:44 AM
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; December 17, 2025)
When Saali Mohabbat was shaping up, Tisca Chopra wanted to act in the film as well as direct it. Producer Manish Malhotra, however, urged her to choose only one role. After she committed to directing, she understood why he had advised so.
“Directing is a mother-of-God hard job. It just never ends,” laughs Chopra, who turned feature film director with the Zee5 movie.
“You start your day with a volley of questions. What should be the size of the car’s number plate? Should the actor shave his chest or not? If you don’t answer, they’ll think that you don’t know your mind. So, you just have to make a decision, even if it’s wrong. And then you make it the right decision.”
What helped was that Chopra knew the world of the Radhika Apte and Divyenndu-led murder mystery intimately. She had written the howdunnit with her husband Sanjay Chopra, a pilot.
Ask her the experience of co-writing with her husband, and she quips, “We almost got divorced writing it. His sense of writing is robust, mine is more subtle. So the yin and yang came together nicely in the script.”
Days after its release, the first-time feature director has only one grouse with Saali Mohabbat — that a word in one of its songs had to be dropped at the insistence of the internal legal team.
“We were told in the beginning [to drop it], but we still went ahead and recorded it. Then we had to dub it to something else,” says Chopra, unconvinced by the idea of censorship.
“I’m not a big fan of censorship. If at 18 years, you can choose a government, why can’t you choose what you want to watch?”
Actors have privileges as well as pressure-Tisca Chopra
8:14 AM
Tisca Chopra on underlining the demanding nature of showbiz, highs and lows of artistes' lives with her directorial debut Rubaru
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; December 6, 2020)
After Tisca Chopra wrote and produced Chutney, she had a nagging feeling that she needed to stretch herself. That's where Rubaru, her directorial debut, emerged from. Initially conceptualised as a full-length feature film, the Arjun Mathur and Chopra-starrer eventually became a short film. "As actors, we are always servicing the vision of the director and writer. But it's not our story. With Rubaru, I wanted to explore if I had it in me to direct. This was a natural progression after having worked with wonderful filmmakers and learnt a great deal," begins the first-time director.
Always inclined towards writing, Chopra teamed up with husband Sanjay, and Namrata Shenoy to develop Rubaru, which draws from her personal experiences. The short film explores the fragilities of stardom, complete with its highs and lows. "We've all seen how magazines and aam junta talk about actors. Artistes constantly have a mask on, with manicured nails, lashes and mascara on point. But when the garb comes off, what does it feel like? At their most vulnerable, they are regular people. Actors have privileges as well as pressure. Here, we've shown how our lives could be crumbling, but the show must go on. I hope it evokes empathy for the performer."
She emphasises that the pressure of stardom affects the mental health of actors. "You are chosen from billions to be the star. Then suddenly, for no reason known to you, you aren't the flavour of the month anymore. The adulation and social media following drops," she says, alluding that living in the public glare is far from easy.
Ever since the tragic demise of Sushant Singh Rajput, the dialogue about Bollywood's cliques and the pressure of the profession has only intensified. "The [discussion about] Sushant, narcotics, nepotism were not on the radar when we made this film in February. But this subject has been relevant for a few years. The idea of being kinder to performers needs to be the focus, because when the world was falling apart, artistes kept everyone in good cheer."
Tisca Chopra's husband Sanjay Chopra's book to be turned into web series
7:52 AM
MID-DAY (October 22, 2016)
Theatre and film actress Tisca Chopra’s pilot-cum-author husband, Captain Sanjay Chopra’s upcoming publication will be adapted for the web. Says Tisca, “My husband’s book will releases in the next 15-20 days. It has already been acquired by a big production house for creation of a web show.”
Sanjay’s earlier publication, Talespin, released in 2012 under Harper Collins. It entailed a collection of 14 short stories that had won several international awards. The duo intends to work on a web show revolving around legal issues, soon after this.
Meanwhile, the 42-year-old actress confesses that she has begun prep on a full-length feature film, something she has been wanting to dabble with for a while. But before she could take the leap to create a film, Tisca decided to wet her hands with a script of a shorter runtime.
“It was on Imtiaz Ali’s [director] suggestion that I decided to run with a short film before making a full-length movie,” reasons the actress, who makes her production debut with Chutney, a short film that revolves around an Indian middle-class family.
Chopra refuses to divulge details about the drama, which is set to release in November. “We had created 15 drafts before we could lock the script. The project will amaze the audience,” says Tisca, who has collaborated with Parched actor Adil Hussain for the film. “He brings so much to the table as an actor, and is an asset for any project that he decides to take up,” she says.
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