‘Is Sanjay Leela Bhansali a megalomaniac?’: Vikramaditya Motwane recalls working for SLB, admits he was driven ‘nuts’ by culture shock

Vikramaditya Motwane worked as an assistant to Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the films Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas. In a new interview, Motwane addressed rumours of Bhansali being a megalomaniac.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | April 27, 2023 11:40 AM IST

3 min read

Vikramaditya Motwane and Sanjay Leela Bhansali pose together for camera. (Photo: Motwane/Instagram)

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Filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane got his start in the industry as an assistant to director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Working with Bhansali, he said in a new interview, was the best film school that he could’ve asked for, because not only did he get to closely observe how a set functions, he learned valuables skills such as cinematography, production design, sound mixing, and even choreography.

But Bhansali has a reputation for being exacting, and Motwane admitted in an interview with Mid-day that the filmmaker is wary of people he doesn’t trust. Asked if the rumours of Bhansali being the sort of person who could ‘drive you nuts’ with their ‘megalomania’ are true, Motwane said, “Sanjay lives, breathes, obsesses about the movies. His movies. And you get it. There’s a search for perfection that, at times, feels unnatural. But when you’re a director yourself, you get it, you understand why. It’s not megalomania. It’s more just that you’re so immersed in your movie, you’re so immersed in the telling of that movie, in creating that world and that universe that is special, that is unique, that is typically him…”

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Asked if Bhansali drove him ‘nuts’, Motwane said, “Drove me nuts because of what I was coming from before that.” Motwane said that as a teenager, he worked on a DD Metro show called Disney Club, where he was mostly left alone, and ended up making around Rs 8000 per month for one day’s work each week. With Bhansali, it was different. “You’re working 25 hours a day, seven days a week, and my salary’s Rs 2500 a month. You’re transported into this world, which is a bit of a shock in the first place… When you see the general laziness in the industry, there’s a ‘chalta hai’ that happens, and you can see it in so many movies. It comes from the producer and the director, and it’s filtered down to the actors and everybody. The sound is terrible, the music’s terrible, everything is terrible because of this ‘chalta hai’ attitude. That wasn’t the case with Sanjay.”

On Bhansali’s films, Motwane said, there’s a finessing that happens on every level of the process, from music to sets to costumes. “It’s a culture shock, but you get used to it,” he said. Asked if he was nice to him, Motwane said, “He was great. What he does is, if he doesn’t trust you, you’re not going to be anywhere near him. But once he trusts you, everything is thrown in your path.”

Motwane is an established filmmaker himself, having directed several acclaimed movies. He is also responsible for two major streaming series, Sacred Games on Netflix and the recent Jubilee, on Prime Video.

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