Saif Ali Khan was unsure about doing ‘Ek Hasina Thi’: Director Sriram Raghavan

Mumbai: Director Sriram Raghavan revealed that Saif Ali Khan was initially hesitant to star in his 2004 broadly acclaimed film, ‘Ek Hasina Thi’. The neo-noir motion thriller marked Raghavan’s directorial debut and was produced by Ram Gopal Varma. The movie featured Saif reverse Urmila Matondkar within the lead.

“For Urmila, it was an auto-backed function and Saif was slightly not sure as a result of he had simply finished ‘Dil Chahta Hai’. He had simply began getting a way of whether or not individuals favored or not; he had not had many successes for a very long time. ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ was his forty fourth movie. He wasn’t positive whether or not this was the precise factor to do. However in some way, we received alongside; we type of favored the identical movies and books. So, he trusted me,” Raghavan stated at a Masterclass session on day three of the Pink Lorry Movie Pageant right here.

The director, often called the grasp of thrillers in Bollywood with movies akin to ‘Johnny Gaddar’, ‘Badlapur’ and ‘Andhadhun’ to his credit score, revealed that the story of ‘Ek Haseena Thi’ got here to him after he misplaced the prospect to direct ‘Ab Tak Chhappan’.

“I used to be going to do one thing else with Ramu, which I didn’t do, and it was ‘Ab Tak Chhappan,’ which Shimit Amin made. It was a narrative of an encounter with a cop and at the moment it was known as ‘Daya’. It was not a biopic. We labored on it for fairly a while and Ramu felt this wasn’t the precise time to do that, so we determined to push it,” Raghavan recalled.

“At that time, my face fell, and he noticed it and stated, ‘There’s another story, simply take a look at it’. I went residence and I used to be like, ‘Regardless of the story is, I wish to do it, so I’d higher prefer it’. I did it with the intention of liking it and located good issues in it. It was fairly uncooked and was written extra like a novel,” he stated, referring to ‘Ek Hasina Thi’, which was written by Pooja Ladha Surti. She went on to work with the director on his motion pictures like ‘Badlapur’, ‘Andhadhun’, and ‘Merry Christmas’.

When requested concerning the greatest classes he realized from Varma, Raghavan stated he realized to not repeat himself as a director and to benefit from the course of of creating a movie. “We completed the ultimate minimize and Ramu noticed it. He stated, ‘You’ve made an excellent movie. I’d advise that because you’ve made an excellent movie, don’t attempt to repeat it and it’s a must to resolve whether or not you’ll benefit from the movie (success) or consider your subsequent movie, like the place is your enjoyment’. So, I had to decide on and I’ve chosen nicely.”