Khoya Khoya Chand is your next release after the much-acclaimed Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi. How do you feel the movie has turned out?
I feel very good. I love the work of a lot of people in the film. A lot of my films have been very dependent on me like Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi. That film depended on me because I knew the background; I knew the politics of that era. There were very few people in my unit who knew that period well so it was not possible without me but in Khoya Khoya Chand there are a lot of other people who have worked very hard and contributed.
Could you tell us something about the film Khoya Khoya Chand ?
It’s a film about two young people caught in the wild world of cinema in the 50’s and 60’s. It’s about being creative, its about the various problems, its about sexual politics, its about being young and ambitious and its about making mistakes. It’s about getting together when the fires and sexual passions of youth mellow a bit and how you get together again may be later in more peace and serenity. It’s about dying and about a girl who says to her man in the end that “Take me away and kill me. I don’t care if I die but I have to work.” That is the whole idea of the film.
The movie was earlier titled Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan. What made you change the title to Khoya Khoya Chand? Does the new title signify anything more important with respect to the film?
No, I changed the title because people thought it was a sequel to Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi. Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan is from the same couplet as Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi. However, it has nothing to do with Hazaron... That was a political film, this is a film about suffocating in ecstasy.
Shiney of course has worked with you before in Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi. What made you select Soha Ali Khan to play the lead role?
Soha plays a girl whose character goes through various phases. It’s a very complicated character. I required an actress who could express certain vulnerability of a heroine of that era, the stardom, the poise and I think she is fantastic. Which other actor will give up three months for a film, prepare and come with 100 percent commitment and dedication. This is her debut in the sense because for the first time, she has done the Cabaret, the Mujra, the piano song , sword fight , horse riding and all the work required of a star during that era. I truly believe this will be Soha’s breakthrough film.
Could you tell us a little bit about Shiney’s character in the film?
Shiney plays a cocky, arrogant writer. He doesn’t know the norms of the industry so he breaks them. He breaks rules but he is supremely talented. How he enters Soha’s world and their complicated journey together is what the film is all about
Soniya Jehan, granddaughter of the legendary Noor Jehan, is also seen in your film? Could you tell us a little about her role?
She plays this hysterical superstar of that era. She is full of tantrums, a real self obsessed character and I think she does it so sportingly and naturally that it is amazing
Om Shanti Om which released recently looked at the Hindi Film Industry of the 70’s and took a fabulous opening. Do you expect a similar response to your film? Also aren’t comparisons between the two films inevitable since they both centre on the Hindi film industry of yesteryears?
(Laughs) There should be comparisons. However, the intentions of the two films are different. Om Shanti Om was a fun film. I am very glad that it came before so that the myth that films about the film industry don’t work is broken. Both Farah and Shah Rukh Khan have done us a great favour.
Apart from Khoya Khoya Chand you are also working on two other movies - Tera Kya Hoga Johnny and Aur Devdas. Even Anurag Kashyap is making his own version of Devdas called Dev D. Do you think the audience would have an overdose of Devdas films?
I hope not, mine is not exactly the same Devdas which has been already made. My film is about politics. Its about supposing Devdas has a political linage and when he comes back from England after studying, he claims political responsibility because his mother is the chief Minister of a state and she is in trouble. It’s on a totally different trip. What if Paro is the daughter of Police Commissioner? What if differences between Paro and Devdas lead her to get married to son of another political leader and what if the two parties are at loggerheads? It’s a totally different film and then it goes into totally different area towards the latter half. I could have said my film is not Devdas. However, I am admitting my influence that this is borrowed to some extent from Sarat Chandra’s Devdas. I read it when I was 18 years old. Devdas is not a book by any of the film-maker. It’s an original book by Sarat Chandra who wrote it when he was only 21.
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