“I work closely with directors. I can co-write or do editing but I don’t go on sets. When we were shooting ‘Munna Bhai M.B.B.S, Sanjay Dutt would look at me instead of Raju (director Rajkumar Hirani) and ask me if the shot was okay. After that, I chose not to go on the sets,” said Chopra, who likes to make movies that will make him proud and happy.
During the ongoing ‘Film Bazaar’s Master Class with Vidhu Vinod Chopra: A dialogue between Filmmakers’, where he was interviewed by director Sudhir Mishra, who had worked with him in film Khamosh (1985), he shared that he is surprised by the long association between him and Hirani, with whom he has made films such as 3 Idiots, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S and the forthcoming Aamir Khan-starrer PK. “With Raju, it’s crazy how it lasted for so long. No agreement was signed between us,” said Chopra, who calls himself “not a pleasant or a likeable guy”.
The filmmaker says he was so “insecure” in the past that he used “offence as a defense mechanism”. “Now, I am not as bad as I used to be,” he added. He describes himself as someone who can’t make himself “likeable”, but there are many filmmakers who would like to thank him. “I reach out to young filmmakers because nobody helped me when I wanted to release Khamosh. No one bought it for a year. People from the industry sent me flowers and appreciated it but no one was willing to buy the film,” said Chopra, who has also worked with directors like Rajesh Mapuskar and Pradeep Sarkar.
Now Chopra wants to make the blockbuster 3 Idiots in various languages because it left an impact on many people’s lives including his own daughter. “I’d like to make 3 Idiots in Chinese, French and English. I would love to make it in every language in the world. It changed many lives including my daughter. She left media studies and learnt Kathak and now, she teaches dance,” said Chopra, who also confessed that while growing up, he couldn’t tell his father that he wanted to be a filmmaker and not a doctor.
The Rajkumar Hirani directorial film, which criticised the education system in India without being too preachy, released in India in 2009. The Chopra production featured Aamir Khan, Sharman Joshi, R Madhavan and Kareena Kapoor.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2014.
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