The comeback film of the decade is just a few hours away, with India preparing to welcome Madhuri Dixit in Aaja Nachle.
Screenwriter Jaideep Sahni, already the toast of Bollywood because of Chak De India, is all set to spring another unique story upon us.
Raja Sen threw Jaideep half-a-dozen questions, discussing writing, characters and Madhuri. Excerpts:
After Khosla Ka Ghosla, you're back with what looks like another ensemble comedy with extreme, occasionally eccentric, warmly likeable characters. Tell us a little more about Aaja Nachle.
Aaja Nachle is a film about a woman trying to bring dance and music in a town where nobody sees any value in such things any more. So there are her and the townsfolk, with the story unfolding between the two. It's based on a story by Adi, [Aditya Chopra, producer] and I felt it was a very nice opportunity for me to create and play around with some really interesting characters. And then we were very fortunate to get some of the finest actors in Hindi films to play the parts, besides Madhuri herself.
While writing the film, was it a conscious decision to make it Dia-centric? It's Madhuri's comeback film, and so there must likely have been the preset need to make the film one revolving around her...
No, actually there wasn't really any specific plan to make a film around her or anything, and she was very occupied with her life in Denver anyway. But when Adi shared his story idea with [director] Anil Mehta and me, and followed up within a few days with another idea of Madhuri playing Dia in the story, it really excited us all and she pretty much became our only choice.
We were lucky that when we shared it with her, she thought so too and took the time out to do this film. So though the story was initially conceived without her in mind, the screenplay, dialogues and lyrics were written with the knowledge that she would be playing the protagonist. As a writer, do you write roles for actors? As in, do you have actors in mind while writing their parts? When you do write like that -- for whatever reason-- is that easier because you can visualise the end product more clearly, or harder, because it limits what you think the character can or cannot do?
I feel it's better in most cases to write keeping characters in mind and not actors, because if the characters are not interesting enough or are poor copies of the actors themselves, even the actors can't do much with them. Besides, I feel it's very unfair to actors, and shows a lack of faith in their talent -- I don't think it's a nice thing to do
to your actor friends! _arti_inline_advt">
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