The legacy continues

It took Rohit,who has done a course in filmmaking from the New York Film School and assisted his father on Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya,Partner and Hook Ya Crook,almost a year to write the story of Desi Boyz. The idea was inspired by his Film School buddies,and what they experienced when the world was going through an economic crisis. “The concept stemmed from the conversations I had with them,and I peppered the screenplay with a lot of humour. The idea was to show how far unemployment can push people. There is a lot of drama,in fact,the film is a healthy combination of drama and comedy,” says the director.

Coming from a film family had its advantages. Dhawan found it very easy to get a narration with the actors. He says it was also easy for him to convince Akshay Kumar,as he liked his story idea. Soon after John Abraham,Deepika Padukone and Chitrangda Singh,after reading the script, came on board. “But the advantage ends there. Gone are the days when actors did films for friendship. Today,no actor will risk his career because of a relationship he/she shares with a director.”

The toughest part according to the debutant was writing the script and being answerable to his team. “Getting a story in place is the toughest part of filmmaking and so is making decisions on the sets. Every morning there were 90 people looking at me for an answer for various things and to take all those decisions was tough.” Though Rohit says he has his own distinct way of filmmaking,being influenced by his father was inevitable. “I have been influenced by dad’s work ethics and the energy he exudes on the sets. He is a man of few words and his only advice was that we should learn from our mistakes so that if we find success it is ours. The only way to learn from him was by observing his work,” says Rohit,who has already started working on his next script,an action film.

Ask him if all he wants to do is commercial cinema and he retorts,“Of course. Being David Dhawan’s son that’s all I can think of. Otherwise people might think I am a rebel!”