‘I’d love to have viewers react positively to whatever I do’
Filmmaker Neeraj Pandey, whose first directorial venture, the thriller A Wednesday, completed 10 years of its release yesterday, has by now become synonymous with tightly-knit, fast-paced films such as Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), and this year’s Aiyaary.
Also in 2013, the filmmaker wrote his debut novel, Ghalib Danger — not surprisingly, it was a thriller. He recently released the Hindi version of the book, the story of an ambitious youth who gets drawn into the underworld. In a chat, he talks about his love for thrillers and writing.
You’ve made many thriller films, and your book, too, seems like one. What fascinates you about this genre?
The exciting stories, to begin with. But it isn’t as if only thrillers fascinate me. My book is not a thriller on the face of it; it also talks about many other issues. It’s not a run-of-the-mill thriller, it has a deeper context, and the readers will get it. It’s set in the 1960s, and the look and feel are all different. But I like to try stuff in different genres. An MS Dhoni — The Untold Story (the 2016 biopic) is different from a Baby.
How does a busy filmmaker like you find the time to write a book? It’s not difficult, let me tell you. Filmmaking is a collaborative process; you get time in between projects. That’s how it happened with this one. I got the idea while working on Special 26, then it got translated into Hindi.
Aiyaary (starring Manoj Bajpayee and Sidharth Malhotra) didn’t do well commercially. Your feelings? It doesn’t affect you. You tell a story; you can’t expect people to like it every time. So, we try and learn from our mistakes, and move on. Are critical and commercial success both important to you? I’d love to have viewers react positively to whatever I do. Others things are secondary.
How’s your next film Chanakya, with Ajay Devgn, shaping up? It’s awesome... and daunting. It has been in the works for four-five years. It’s now time for us to get into the prep.