I never made this film with the motive of making money. I wanted to make a different film, which would strike a chord with the audience. I'm extremely happy that 'Mithunam' succeeded in what it wanted to achieve.
When we made the original 'Dhoom,' we wanted to make a film that would not bore us and wanted it to be just a breezy cool film.
I'm a film guy. I love it. When I read the screenplay, I knew that there would be no HD camera that could achieve the look that I wanted for this film. I wanted it to be dirty, and 16mm provides all of that with the look and the grain. That's what I worked for, and that's what I wanted, and that's how I'd seen the movie in my mind.
When you are making a film, you do not know how it is going to be received by the audience. In fact, if you set out to make a film thinking that it will make 100 crores, it never ends up making that much money.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
Rather than doing a hero-oriented film, I love being a part multi-starrer film, because such films always strike a chord with audience.
'Baahubali' team is not after numbers. If we would have been number guys, we would have never made a film with such a huge budget. We just wanted to make the biggest war film of this country, but what it has achieved is amazing.
I didn't make a film because I wanted a starring role. I made a film because I wanted to tell a story and I wanted to prove that I could direct.
'The Lobster,' at some point, was my most accessible film. Then I made 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer,' which turned out to be not as accessible as 'The Lobster.' It was the film I wanted to make and the story I wanted to tell.
I did not want 'Battleship' to be perceived as an American war film. I wanted to do everything I could to make the film accessible to a global audience. It felt like bringing an alien component to the film would help take the American jingoism out of it.
In America, instead of making the audience come to the film, the idea seems to be for you to go to the audience. They come up with the demographics for the film and then the film is made and sold strictly to that audience.
I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would hope that I am more catholic in my tastes.
I have refused money sometimes for a film. I have refused films when I felt that it was not for me. When it was just a job or just about making money, I said no. I wanted to make every film count, and when you are true to yourself, this gives you a certain integrity and a certain reputation.
There are different sides to me; I wanted to make a personal film but I would not want to make any film that does not reflect me in it. At least, not right now. I'm just too young to be doing that.
I directed 'Death in the Gunj' which released in 2017. It got very good reviews and a few awards but did not do well at the box-office. But I'm not bothered. I made the film that I wanted to make. It was not a film for everyone.
When I made 'Hard Boiled,' I had no idea that it would be released to an international audience. I just wanted to make a film to team up my two favorite actors, Tony Leung and Chow Yun-Fat.
I made four comedies, and all did well, but I always wanted to do an action film. When I saw 'Singham,' I thought this was the right film. Many stopped me, saying, 'You are doing so well in comedy, why do you want to make this film?'