Zoya Akhtar on Made in Heaven: Have always been fascinated with weddings

Here are excerpts from the conversation:

How did you come up with the idea of Made in Heaven?

I have a very close friend who is into wedding planning and we keep talking to him about it. I have always been fascinated by the space. It’s visually very delightful. Also, we love shooting in New Delhi. While we were working on something else, we chanced upon a meeting with Amazon Prime Video. They liked the idea and we soon got rolling.

You seem to have a penchant for multi-starrers.

Honestly, it is really fun. People may think it is challenging but when you enjoy, it doesn’t seem like a task. We really love telling multiple stories intertwined together in a string.

The show has four directors. How challenging was it to be on the same page while filming?

What is most important is that the basic values and politics has to match. That’s what causes the big conflicts when you are on the same side of the fence. As for us, we really respect each other. Also, all of us have a strong sense of logic, rationale and fun. If something is fun and juicy, we just would go ahead with it. There is no ego involved.

Excel Entertainment is co-producing the series. It’s earlier shows Inside Edge and Mirzapur did really well. So did Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani share any tips with you guys?

‘Wait till you do a web show. You will learn how to shoot faster’ (laughs). That’s the kind of advice they had for us.

Gully Boy was set in the bylanes of Mumbai. Here you had a set of pompous weddings to handle. Was it challenging to jump between the two worlds?

I am juggling anyway. There is just no escape. Any story that we get attracted to, we start building it and then present it. So it’s a particular journey with every project.

Recently, Four More Shots Please had an all-woman team and Made in Heaven also has women behind the camera. Do you feel more women filmmakers are joining the ranks?

There are definitely more women. And that is clearly showing with the kinds of stories that we are seeing on screen. Every year, there are more women getting into writing, directing and producing. There is a vast change in the kind of content being made, and there is definitely a woman gaze to it.

Made in Heaven stars Shobhita Dhulipala, Arjun Mathur, Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin, Shashank Arora and Shivani Raghuvansh among others.