Agent Anurag

The writer-director spent an entire day watching all the documentaries back to back with actress and friend,Kalki Koechlin,before agreeing to host the show. “I usually get bored while watching documentaries that try so hard to teach you something. But these had me hooked,” he confesses.

The show explores real life inspirations behind popular movie icons. For each episode,Kashyap will actually dress up as the character that he is talking about. “The minute a director hosts the show,it brings so much more credibility to it. We couldn’t think of anyone but Kashyap for the role,” Sadhanand says.

Kashyap will introduce the iconic movie character at the beginning of every show and will dole out trivia throughout the hour-long episode. “The facts are so interesting. I feels great that I’m the one giving all these information to the viewers,” says the director,known to be a world cinema addict.

Even though the show talks about the growth of film icons,Kashyap insists that it’s not only film-buffs who would love the series. “The documentaries are so well made that even if you haven’t seen the movies we talk about,you’ll still make sense of it,” he says.

Facing the camera must have been a difficult transition for someone who’s spent so many years behind the camera. “I was a nervous wreck while shooting. I’m definitely not suited for being on screen,” adds the director,who goes on to say that he has absolutely no plans of being a host or an actor.

The director says that while the True Stories experience was fun,he felt stifled sitting at the sets and trying to get his lines right. “I’ve never shot any of my films on a set. I need to shoot the reality outside,but of course we couldn’t do anything of that sort for this show,” say the director,who has grown up watching Indiana Jones and watched the documentary on it twice in the same day.

However,this is not the first time that Kashyap — who is at present riding high on the success of Dev.D and Gulaal — is working for the small screen. He has directed two short films for television,Last Train to Mahakali,a thriller,and more recently Rajuben,which was aired as a mini-series.

Ask him if hosting a TV show means that he’s warming up to making TV programmes and pat comes the reply: “Finally,I have got a chance to make films without fighting for them,I don’t want to do anything else right now.”