How did Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha start?
We were working on Chanakya.But when Chanakya went on the back burner, we were thinking of what to do next in terms of a theatrical release. The germ of an idea began from there.
Ajay Devgn and Tabu have been friends since their college days. Was that the reason for casting them?
I didn’t know that they were friends since college days. I wanted to make this film. It’s as simple as that. Since Ajay and I were constantly in touch over Chanakya, I bounced it off. He liked it and we made it happen.
And Tabu?
While I knew that Tabu was just the right cast, she was doing a lot of films with Ajay at that time – Drishyam 2, Bholaa etc. I was very concerned about what would be the newness in terms of casting. They have not done something like this together in this genre. But I took the longest time to approach her while I kept on doing everything else. Luckily, Ajay did other films during that time. And then everything fell in the right places. I told her about the story arc and then read out the climax sequence. That’s about it. When they hear a story, they understand how different it is and all that.
Why did you cast Shantanu Maheshwari as the younger version of the character played by Ajay Devgn in the film?
Besides the passing resemblance that we have, I found him to be doing exactly what was expected of the younger Krishna, bringing a certain gravitas and at the same time, charm. The character is very affable. So, we were just looking to discover that aspect of him. We had a two-and-a-half-month-long rigorous process of casting. For the longest time, we held on to the last three people because all three of them were equally good, if not more. The only reason why it tipped in favour of Shantanu would be because the resemblance was more. He was just the right age to play this one. And other actors were slightly older.
The same goes for Saie Manjrekar also. She was also a part of the last two or three shortlisted ones. We involved Shantanu in another reading as a final audition with her, where you could see how the pairing is working and all of that. Finally, these are the two we shortlisted.
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Do you think the star power is fading at the Box Office because it’s not the same anymore?
There will obviously be a draw, but it has to be complemented by some newness to the content that you are making. The draw of the star in our line of work is there. That’s the reason there is a whole section of the public that takes the queue on the first day, first show.
You can’t expect a newcomer’s film to open as big as a superstar’s film. It is impossible. That’s why they’re superstars. The economics of both films are different. And you’ll have to work around that economics. So, it’s unfair to compare. Why does a thing work? Why does a thing not work? It’s not as easy as we like to simplify it.
Your long-time collaborator Akshay Kumar seems to be going through a rough patch.
I think ups and downs are part of everyone’s life. It’s not a big deal. He’s seen too much of this world for me to interpret as to what’s going right or wrong.
The South Indian filmmakers seem to know their audiences’ pulse…
Not everything is working there. You go and research as to what has happened this year. You will get to know. Then everybody is peddling this and all that. It’s not true. We, whether it is North, South, whatever, there is a struggle to understand what is my audience. And I think a lot of people will, in the next one, one and a half, two years, I think you will see that, okay, now they are figuring it out. The things that worked.
What is the course correction needed in Hindi cinema?
We’ve got to take stock of where we are as makers and creators. We’ve got to up our game. Post-pandemic, people are now updated with whatever is going around in the world. If I show you the same thing again, you will not like it. You will say that I’ll watch it on OTT, it doesn’t matter. It’s pretty complex as to why people will go to theatres. And there’s also that one very interesting thing that certain people will go and see a certain film for sure in the theatres. Again, that’s another demographic. So multiple other demographics are working at play.
