How do you react to the buzz around your second directorial venture?I’m excited and surprisingly, not scared. Maybe once the release date comes closer I’ll get nervous. But still I don’t think there is anything to be scared about since I’ve seen the film. Shah Rukh Khan and I didn’t expect Om Shanti Om (OSO) to get so much hype. We didn’t expect Main Hoon Na would be remembered so well. Main Hoon Na was an unapologetic masala Hindi phillum. What is the vibe around Om Shanti Om?This one is also a Hindi phillum. But unlike Main Hoon Na that had multiple tracks, OSO has a single, extremely dramatic track. The best bit is that the first half is set in 1970s’ Bollywood. This has made the texture of the film very refreshing. My team had a great time looking for references. If we had to shoot a hospital scene, we made sure we created a hospital out of a ’70s film. The junior artistes are also from the ’70s. I think the film will bring back the fashion trends of that time: the bell bottoms, the side locks and the curls. We’re very confident about the retro look of our film. That’s why we have also sold the OSO fashion line to Shopper’s Stop and Siya. What’s with the huge poster of a film called Dreamy Girl throughout the first half?I wanted to project Deepika as a huge ’70s superstar like Hema Malini so we decided to take off on Dream Girl. The making of Dreamy Girl is the funniest bit in the film since we’ve shown Deepika romancing the likes of Rajesh Khanna and Sunil Dutt. We’ve done some major computer generated imagery to make sure that happens. We’ve also made SRK wear white shoes and pants like Jeetendra and made him do all sorts of things like crawl on the floor for a song. And you also made sure SRK gets a six pack for a shirtless song sequence?See, SRK will do anything that is required for the film. He really worked out for OSO because he has two distinct looks in the film (depicting 1977 and 2007). Since he plays a superstar of 2007, he had to look like a star of today. I told him during Main Hoon Na that I wanted to shoot him bare-chested since he was playing an army officer. But we couldn’t do that since he had just had a back operation. But he promised me that if he ever does a bare torso scene, he’d do it for my film. For OSO he asked me to give him three months. His reasoning was that if he didn’t have a six pack, he wouldn’t bare his chest. By the time we shot the scene he had eight packs. He worked so hard on his body that the joke on the sets was that ‘Please let me go back to acting’. They say in the industry that SRK can never say no to you?Well, I can’t get him to do everything. I mean, he’s not going to do anything stupid just because I’m telling him to do it. It’s just that we share the same kind of irreverent humour and love for the same kind of movies so somewhere he trusts my judgment. I don’t think anyone else could have made him stand quietly while Satish Shah spits on his face. He didn’t do it blindly for me but he did it because he knew it’d work. We don’t act like two eccentric geniuses making a film. We want to enjoy the process of making a film and so we have fun. In OSO we have both gone quite mental. Why did you opt for Deepika Padukone as the leading lady?I needed a new pairing with SRK. Moreover, since my heroine is a superstar of the ’70s, I couldn’t have cast Aishwarya Rai or Rani Mukerji who are big stars of today and tell people to imagine them as the stars of ’70s. I needed a new face for my character, Shanti Priya. Also Deepika is a classic beauty who has the poise of an actress from the south. She’s also a fabulous dancer and after doing her screen test I was convinced she’d work. I really felt as if I was launching my own daughter. How did you manage to rope in the entire industry for a song?That one has turned out to be the mother of all item songs. I don’t know what others will do after this song. We approached 34 actors and 30 turned up. It took us six days to shoot the song. All the heroines came for SRK and all the heroes for me. I believe Mithun Chakraborty caused a stampede.You heard right. He caused a traffic jam. There was a queue of people just to see him. Ecstatic fans even asked SRK to click their pictures with Mithun da. He happily obliged.SRK is also the producer of the film. What is his verdict?He’s already shown most of the film to everyone on his dirty laptop with its dirty sound. He’s quite happy with it. It’s the biggest film out of Red Chillies and we realize the expectations. You have a mini film empire in your home turf with husband Shirish Kunder and brother Sajid Khan also making films. How do you cope with it?It’s great. I’m more creatively involved with Shirish’s films since we live together. Sajid does his own thing. We’ve always been a film-crazy family. So it’s good. You’re expecting triplets.Oh my babies are quite happy on the film set. They never trouble me when I’m shooting. Only when I’m in the house do they make me puke and feel all drained. I’m sure all three of them will also get into film-making since they are already film babies. There are rumours that you’re quitting choreography.That’s true. I can’t do another wedding song. Only if an international song comes my way, I might think about it. I won’t choreograph even for Shirish now. He’s quite pleased with this decision since we fought a lot during Jaan-E-Mann. Have you seen any recent film that you wish you had directed?Rang De Basanti. I was totally blown over by it. Not only did it have a superb story, it was also technically awesome. I like well-made and well-shot films. Most of our films look like Gujarati TV serials. What’s next?Next year, I’ll take a break since my babies will need me. I’ll start my next film in 2009. Shirish will start his film, Joker, with Akshay Kumar in 2008.
