When I became a choreographer, I was not assisting any choreographer. I was assisting the director Mansoor Ali Khan for 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.' I was the fourth assistant director.
Even with a big budget, you can make a niche film.
I was chosen over British and French choreographers to work on 'Bombay Dreams.'
Manmohan Desai's films pack a lot of joy and have a child-like quality and you can see the director is having fun, but my movies don't suspend disbelief that much. But it's good to be compared to Manmohan Desai. He was run down by critics in his time.
There are two aspects around which the dynamics of Bollywood revolve - chivalry and chauvinism.
I have fully retired as a choreographer. I do not have the patience now to make actors learn their steps. For me, that ship has sailed. I have enjoyed 22 years of it.
The climax of 'Johny Mera Naa,' it's one of the best climaxes ever written, ever directed. If I ever wanted to remake a movie, I'd try to do this one, just for the climax.
Shirin Farhad' is a romantic tale of an unmarried couple who feel they can live together forever. Having crossed the marriageable age, what happens to them forms the crux of the story. The movie has several comic sequences with an emotional touch to it.
It is an extremely difficult task to make an entertaining movie, which is completely aesthetic and you can watch again and again.
When TV came, people said who will go to theatres to watch movies? When the Internet came, they said the same. And now it's the digital media... The doomsday predictions are always there but I don't think people will stop going to cinema halls because that is one experience you can't get at home.
A part of 'Happy New Year' is inspired by western pop culture, the pop music videos of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Duran Duran in the '80s.
I always wanted to make cinema which will entertain the masses, cinema that could be called escapist but is mounted on a realistic scale with high production values.
When I see a lot of the big Hollywood movies, I see they are all financed by Indian studios.
I have to be someone; maybe I'm just doing it for my father. When I made a movie, it had to be a hit because when he died, he was a flop director.
People don't wish to watch masala films of the '50s any more. Audiences do not want loud films at all. They are watching Netflix and Amazon that have fresh ideas.
It takes two years to make a good film.
IVF is a wonderful thing. One has to ignore the injections as the reality is that nobody is going to invent a pill that you can take to get a baby.
In 'Purab Aur Paschim,' there's one of the nicer patriotic scenes which is patriotic without going jingoistic. There's a scene set in a rotating restaurant, where Pran, who has left India, is completely running India down and Manoj Kumar is taking up for India. And there's that song 'Jab Zero Diya.'
I don't care for jewellery and fancy clothes.
Personally, I love being a mother the most. I dream of taking holidays with my three kids. I want to take my kids to beaches, gardens, the farm, malls everywhere.
