Ace Off

As a filmmaker,it must have been a rewarding experience to work with both of them.
Just watching them in the same frame was a high I cannot describe. Mr. Bachchan was so involved in the film from the very first narration onwards — from giving his inputs on the script to discussing his character with me at length. By the time we were shooting,he was the character — from his walk to the way he spoke; he had transformed into Venkat Subramanyam.

I was a bit apprehensive,very excited and hugely humbled when I first met Sir Ben. He had already graphed out the character in his head on the day i narrated the script to him and this made my work easy.

You took a few years off after Shabd. How did you zero in on this theme,which seems quite unexplored in Bollywood?
After Shabd,I wrote a few scripts but none of them felt like,“Yes! This is it”. The journey of this film started off from an idea given to me by music director Vishal Dadlani. It sounded new and exciting but also extremely tough to translate into a script. Shiv Subrahmanyam and I researched the subject with the help of Professor Alladi Subramanyam (IIT,Mumbai) and Aditya Parameswaran (Stanford University) who gave us valuable inputs for the math and college angle of the film.

How difficult was it to coordinate with an ensemble cast?
It was challenging. I had more actors to brief in one scene here than I had in the whole of Shabd. But that’s the fun of filmmaking,every film comes with its own set of lessons and pushes you further in some direction.

The interiors of Mumbai are explored well in the movie. Describe your experience.
Mumbai is an amazing city with many colours and shades. Many locations in Mumbai have often been explored in films. But with each director/ script,the location takes on a different hue. There were times when,while shooting at some of these locations,Mr Bachchan would get nostalgic about films that he shot there in the past,like Deewar.

Female directors have often stated that actors don’t take them seriously. What has your experience been?
I have never faced a gender bias in my work experience. I think it requires a lot of courage to go out there and make a film,to start with. And I’m sure this applies to men as much as to women. But if,as a woman,you demand special treatment and concessions then you should be ready to face the biases that come with that.