‘For CTRL we needed a young actor, like Ananya Panday, who is troll-able’: Vikramaditya Motwane

You have been trying out different genres since your first film Udaan. How do you make these choices?

I go for whatever is exciting at that moment. They are driven by different emotions. The first time I watched Searching (2018) in a theatre, I loved the screenlife format. I loved that you can tell a story through what’s only on screen, whether it is a YouTube video or facetime chat. During the pandemic, Avinash Sampath (co-writer) and I landed on this idea. I am a bit of a nerd. It is exciting for me to figure out how the character interacts with AI and how we will shoot it.

What’s your process of moving between different formats?

Earlier, you could make films only for cinema. You could make commercial films or parallel ones. Then, there were the kind of movies Anurag (Kashyap) and I were making. They had the potential to be seen by the commercial audience but we are making it on a smaller scale. But they too were meant for theatres. With the streaming services, today you can choose the format best suited for your story.

You have made some unusual casting choices. What’s your process?

For CTRL we needed a young actor, who is troll-able. I had seen Ananya Panday’s work in Gehraiyaan (2022) and was impressed with her performance. She is someone who is secure about who she is. People have the preconceived notion about her. Considering what the film is about and the way the character breaks, we needed an actor like that.

When you have a great casting director, he/she will get the right person for you time after time. You also have to make instinctive choices. In 20 seconds, we knew Jitendra Joshi is Katekar in Sacred Games (2018). Sometimes it is a struggle when you are looking for that perfect actor for a role.

Ananya Panday in a still from Gehraiyaan.

As a director, how much do you nudge the actors and when do you step back?

That depends on formats. I generally like to give macro notes. Vihaan has a six-minute monologue in CTRL. It is more about his anger, less thinking and more spontaneous. In such a scene, it’s okay if the actor fumbles. I try not to be too granular. Otherwise, the audience can see through it. If you can see the writer in a film, then that’s not a good idea. Similarly, if you see the actor in the film that’s not good. I try to give an actor as much agency as I can.

You rarely cast big stars. Why?

A big star would have done disservice to the kind of films I made. I wrote Udaan with Ajay Devgn in mind for the father’s role. But I never took the film to him. I assumed he would be too big for the film, he might overwhelm the film. I might have been completely wrong about that. Part of me was also saying that he was going to say no. Maybe he would have said yes. Sometimes actors surprise you. Today, the stars are open to doing the kind of roles which are not within the Bollywood box.

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Is Bollywood bogged down by the star-system?

We need to take more risks. For that we need strong and confident producers. We are bogged down because we have a limited number of stars. With Netflix and other platforms coming in that has changed to a large extent, at least in the series format. In a series, you don’t need stars to tell a great story. Once the first season of a series works, then it does not matter who is in the cast. Those people become stars automatically. If you take the Marvel Universe, apart from Robert Downey Jr, every other star associated with it was created after the films came out.

You had earlier mentioned that the stories travelled when people moved to Mumbai. Are we now caught in a Bombay bubble?

We need to look at local literature and other sources of stories. Our reference points are the books we read, the movies that we watch and the life we lead. There is such a large world out there and so many stories to be told. So, it’s a question of being able to dig deeper and find those stories. Today, you can be in a small town in Madhya Pradesh and can have the same access that others have. A lot of new writers are not Mumbai-based.

Which is your near perfect work?

Among the movies, I will say Udaan. Things came together really well — it has a good script and right actors. As a director, I am most proud of Bhavesh Joshi Superhero. We achieved something while creating the grungy, interesting superhero type world.

You love big genre movies, spectacles. Will you make one?

The time has come when you can make unfiltered pure spectacle movies. We are not forced to throw in a love story or a song. If they are there, it’s great but it’s not a necessity anymore.