'Gabbar is Back' is Akshay Kumar's finest performance: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is not the gloomy, loony person that everyone thinks (I did too at one point) he is. He is actually quite fun. He laughs a lot, and will crack you up with his one-liners. He is not averse to mocking you, and even sulking during the course of the interview. You will be served samosas and the best tea in the world. And if you ask nicely, he will take you to the editing room and show you scenes of the film he is currently shooting. It’s the whole movie experience. Here SLB opens up about films and more, read on...

Why have you been treating your production Gabbar Is Back like a stepchild and only concentrating on Bajirao Mastani that you are directing as well?

Stepchild? Who gave the title? Who finally said, ‘Okay let’s make this film’? Me! I insisted on buying it. I am caught up with the shooting of Bajirao Mastani, it’s on a very big scale but I’ve seen Gabbar to the end. I’ve seen the background, music, songs, everything…

But you haven’t gone on the set even for a day.

Sets... I never visit the sets of any of the films because it is not fair to the director. It is important to give him the space, and the freedom. Actors should interact only with the director. If I am on the set, the actors will look at me and say ‘Aap ko kaisa lagaa?’ Once I start going to the set, then they will ask for me to attend more shootings. Also, if I go on the set, the actors might feel that may be the producer is insecure or maybe I don’t trust the director so I am following up with him. So, I don’t ever go to any sets of mine.

But you are fully involved before the film begins shooting.

Yes. Once I put the film together, I say, ‘This is the film, this is the cast, this is the script. Now go make it.’ For the script, music, casting, etc there are many meetings but once the shooting starts, I step away. Then I see the edit and if I don’t like it, then I cut a little bit here and there. Like Mary Kom, I completely cut on my own. I decided to edit the way I thought it should be edited. Then the film goes for mixing and other departments and all professionals do their work. But Gabbar is very special to me, so it can never be a stepchild. Yes, there are a lot of films that I am making, it’s not that I am working on it full day and full night but I am absolutely there, now Shabina (Khan, co-producer) is looking into it. But if she is saying that she is the only one who is doing everything, please correct it.

Akshay was in both your co-productions Rowdy Rathore and now Gabbar Is Back. Why haven’t you ever directed him?

(Dramatically) What nasty questions you have started asking me. You started the interview on an offensive note. Why haven’t I taken Akshay in my films? Will he give me 150 days? Or 200 days. No.

Yes, he will finish three films in that many number of days.

His and my style of working are very different. I am very fond of Akshay as an actor, he is fantastic, there are no two ways about it. Can you imagine anybody else doing Rowdy Rathore?  When I see the way he has changed for Gabbar, the things he has done, I am so impressed. He is so professional, talented, he has a huge audience, he keeps up with the time, and he has got everything that makes a big star. When I get the right subject for him, I will work with him. There is nothing that can stop me from working with Akshay Kumar. He is such a good star but his film philosophies are different from mine, so ideologies are different. I just don’t only make films or make money. I make films for me. It is making a film that matters. I wait to create a certain scene and a certain moment. I mean his style does not permit that, he might get impatient, he might feel like running away for all you know after the 10th day. I love Akshay so much, when the right script comes along, I’ll work with him.

Is it feasible for actors to block a year for a film, given that equations change every Friday?

I feel when an actor limits himself saying, ‘I am only going to give you 50 days for a film and I can’t give you even one more day,’ you are limiting a lot of possibilities and opportunities that can come your way. Don’t look at the number of days, look at the script, look at the possibilities of making a great film. A film that will need a lot of hard work and give you new opportunites to explore as an actor. So actors should not take a film which will get over in 45 days. And as a director, I should not make a film only because it is going to be made in 150 days or 200 days, that is not right. But I feel somewhere there might be that understanding. When I worked with Shah Rukh on Devdas, we never talked about how many days we would shoot. He shot for 260 days with me. That was a lot of time, but we didn’t even discuss it because you are not supposed to. Because you know that this is the style, and the mounting of the film. This is the kind of scene construction will take that time. It’s the difference between building the Taj  Mahal and constructing a mall. It’s different, one will take less time, so it depends on what you are making and what an actor is comfortable being part of.

Give me three reasons why one should go and see Gabbar Is Back?

One because it’s a great script, and talks about a very relevant issue called corruption  which I think is  eating up the country and it gives you a great solution because it just raises your conscience to it. Of course people are more aware of it now. Ten years ago, they used to ignore corruption and we used to succumb to it.  Now people are discussing it, and I feel that discussion needs to be  taken to another level. Secondly, because it’s Akshay Kumar’s  finest performance. It’s also because it’s Gabbar. Which for us, is a cult figure. And fourthly, because it is my film. (Smiles).

You make very different films as a director and as a producer.  Is that because Rowdy Rathore and Gabbar Is Back are not your sensibility?

I love all kinds of films. One section is  multiplex audience, which says only family films are good, then we make those kind of films. Another section feels only films which are being shot in Bhendi Bazaar and Pydhoni, running through the lanes, only are good films. I am saying both are good. I’ve grown up, watching films with Fakira, Chor Machaye Shor, Loafer and Pratigya. These are all my favourite films. I want to make those kind of films. If actually I would have got a chance, I would have directed Rowdy but I was shooting Ram Leela at the time. I would have loved to do Mary Kom also. Half the time, all those things that I want to do actually can’t do, so I say ‘chalo, let’s produce.’  It’s important for a director to have that range, to enjoy the basic roots of Indian cinema, in the Indian audiences. Finally the audience, mainstream audience, single screen theatre, that is what our nation is all about.  That is what Bollywood is all about, so I am very proud of having produced Rowdy Rathod or Gabbar as much as I am proud of Mary Kom and the other films, I have directed. Personally to make a film, to direct a film, I don’t know. If you gave me the total of all the films I’ll make it. But they made the whole film in ten crores.

Do you think it is possible for you to make a small budget film?

I tried making Black as a small film but it became big, now what to do.  It’s just the way that my mind goes. I feel budget is not... First of all you have to justify the budget. If you get the budget you should know how to use that money. When you get a lot of money it doesn’t necessarily mean that you know how to use it. I know of directors who have big budgets but it’s not worth it because they don’t know how to spend. But spending is not the reason why I make a film. It just happens that I want this, I want that and then you realise that it’s costing a lot more than it actually should. Most directors or producers will  say, ‘bunk it, you don’t need it’ or ‘who  cares a damn’,  or  ‘who is going to bother about it?’ This doesn’t happen abroad. Look at their softer films or their smaller films, there is a lot of detailing even in them. Their budgets are bigger, their level of everything is higher because of the precision and the excellence...  I justify the money I spend and can say, ‘okay, I used the money correctly.’ A lot of people feel that I waste money, a lot but that’s not true. I shoot my songs in over 12 or 15 days. I want my song precise, perfect, it has to be correct, I want to give my actors all the time of the world. And the feeling that they have enjoyed working on this film. They need to be loved, need to be pampered so it’s all a sense of good living that everyone experiences when I am making a film, so I justify my budgets.

Your mentor Vinod Chopra has made a film for the West with actors from there. Do you want to do that at some stage?

I won’t ever make a Hollywood film because I can’t be the flavour of the month. I feel it’s very important to know that it is that you are making. I understand Bollywood because this is what one  have grown up with. Our language, our traditions, our society today, what is happening, our people, is what I know and that is what I make. How do I make a film on people living abroad? I don’t know anything about their world. If you are asking about a collaboration and whether I would do an Indian film with a producer abroad, that might be a possibility. But I won’t go there to make an English film, with an English ambience, English surrounding and English script because it doesn’t make sense for me to do that. I don’t know it, so I will not make it, I should only make what I know, Vinod Sir is comfortable, as he has lived a lot in LA, he travels a lot, he interacts with people a lot over there, so maybe he knows the place but I don’t.

When was the last time you took off on a holiday?

Last year. I went after a long time to Paris. The weather sometimes gets depressing. Have you been inside the village, the old Paris? When I did the opera I stayed in the old Paris. It was a Spanish writer’s apartment, given to me by the theatre, Her record player and her records.. Oh what an apartment I didn’t want to get out of that place.