Vikas Bahl Tells Us If He is Burdened By the Success of ‘Queen’
We get Shaandaar’s director, Vikas Bahl to talk about the film’s journey and his expectations from it. And lots more.
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Vikas Bahl’s Shaandaar has opened to mixed responses. Unlike his runaway hit Queen, this Shahid Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer has critics and viewers divided. I spoke to the filmmaker just before his new film hit theatres on Thursday.
Q: The most striking thing about Shaandaar is its pairing. We haven’t seen Shahid and Alia together on the silver screen before so how did the casting happen?
Vikas Bahl: Shaandaar happened because of Shahid Kapoor, so needless to say, he was my first pick. It all started with my narration to Shahid and then, he happened to love the script or should I say the first draft so much that he really encouraged me to take it ahead. He literally pushed me to write the script for what it has now turned out to be. And well, it emerged as a fairytale-like story and when you think of a female character who needs to fit that bill, I doubt if there’s anyone better than Alia. She was my spontaneous choice and I’m only glad that I made it.
Q: Did you really intend to make it a complete over-the-top film?
Vikas Bahl: In all honesty, the idea was to create a totally different world. The word ‘unique’ guided my sensibilities while I was shaping it up and I was extremely convinced and sure that I wanted to give the audience a very unseen experience. We have all been bombarded with love stories and we have also seen wedding films before. The challenge was to make this love-wedding tale something that nobody had ever seen. So we added, like you said, over-the-top ensembles, the locations are exquisite and there’s animation too. There’s anything but daily routine.
Q. I have to ask this rather obvious question about how Queen and Shaandaar are so strikingly different and yet both are your very own babies. How does this level of versatility come to you?
Vikas Bahl: I can’t even begin to tell you, firstly, how thankful I am that both these films are just so different from each other. Secondly, it may sound boastful, but I am naturally tuned to think differently. Seldom do I see myself struggling with any repetition of thoughts. The idea is to have fun, to keep experimenting and I think that worked well for me.
Q: Did you have unusually long shooting schedules considering that you were shooting abroad for both Queen and Shaandaar?
Vikas Bahl: (Laughs) Actually, I almost always pack up the shoot in a month’s time or with an addition of some more days. But, the secret to getting so much work done in such less days lies in going out there with intense planning. For me, everything first needs to be organised and chalked out and then, I go ahead with the shoot. Also, I follow a no-break, no-rest schedule quite judiciously. Healthy pre-production equals to good productivity.
Q: Do you fret realising that it is only normal for people to compare Shaandaar to Queen? Also, what are your personal expectations from the film?
Vikas Bahl: You know what, I know that I have nothing to worry about. I proved a lot of things with Queen but I also know that Queen is a once-in-a-lifetime film. It can not happen all the time and that’s exactly where its beauty lies. In my head, I hope that Shaandaar does well for itself, in its own capacity but I don’t sweat. I keep myself grounded and just wait for things to unravel themselves.
Q: As we call it a wrap, one memory from the shoot of this film that you’d like to recount for us.
Vikas Bahl: All I can think of is this relentless dance spree that we were on. Every 20 minutes, literally every 20 minutes, we’d just end up playing ‘Raita phail gaya’ or ‘Gulabo’ or just some other track from the movie and the crew knew they had to stop shooting at least for a bit, if not more. It soon became our own mini crew party (giggles).