Comic Convention

When you are born into a film family,you don’t choose films; films choose you,” states debutant director Rohit Dhawan,when asked if filmmaking was a natural career choice for him. The older son of veteran director David Dhawan,Rohit is confident and excited about his first film Desi Boyz. At the same time,he is a tad apprehensive about his dad’s reaction to it. “The movie is in the lighter vein,but it is not completely in dad’s space. It isn’t loud and OTT. The comedy is subtler,and I don’t see dad going all gaga over it. He is rather more excited about his directorial venture Rascals,” smiles Rohit.

The initiation of Rohit and his younger brother Varun (who is debuting as an actor in Karan Johar’s Student of The Year) into filmdom happened very early in life. Everyday their father would come back with plenty of anecdotes from his shoots. David,during his early years,had about four to five releases a year,and this meant the family too ate,slept and breathed cinema,explains Rohit. He enrolled himself at the New York Film School for a course in filmmaking. After graduating from there,he assisted his father on Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya,Partner and Hook Ya Crook. “Once I had worked alongside my dad,I was sure about writing and directing my first film,” says Rohit.

It took him almost a year to write the script of Desi Boyz. Its story,however,was inspired by what couple of his film school buddies were going through when the world faced economic crisis. “The concept stemmed out of the conversation I had with them. I wanted to show how far can unemployment push people,” says the 30-year-old director.

Having a film lineage was advantageous,as he found it easy to get a narration with actors. “But the advantage ends there. Gone are the days when actors did films for friendship,” says Rohit,who managed to convince Akshay Kumar and John Abraham to play the lead roles in his film and signed Deepika Padukone and Chitraganda Singh opposite them. However,being answerable to his team was a tougher task. “Every morning there were 90 people looking at me for an answer and to take all those decisions was tough,” says he.

Though Rohit has a distinct way of filmmaking,inspiration from his father is inevitable. “I have been influenced a lot by his work ethics and the energy he exudes on sets,” says Rohit who has already started work on his next script,an action film. Ask him if all he wants to do is commercial cinema,he is quick to retort. “Of course. Being David Dhawan’s son,that’s all I can think of.”