One is Arthur Miller whose play, All My Sons, blew me away when I first read it. How did that start?There are two writers who influenced me a lot when I started reading plays. You started writing at NSD and even before that. It was a great experience early in my career. In the evenings, we would open a bottle and have a party. We got to fly there, there were caretakers there and a lot of food too. Then Ramu sent us to his beautiful farmhouse in Hyderabad, which was all paid for. I personally like this process very much. It’s like a party because you become friends with your co-writers and you’re meeting over coffee, chatting about whatever is happening in the world and also working on the script. The other way, which is more fun, is when the writers meet every day and ideate together. That’s one way where the writers are working in isolation initially and then they exchange ideas and arrive at the final script. When Rajat (Kapoor), for example, brings me a script, I sit with it and improvise and then we meet and thrash out what’s working and what’s not. How does the process of co-writing happen? And out of the many possible ways, which one do you prefer?There are two-three ways of going about co-writing and I have done it all. It was very early in my career and I learnt a lot of things about screenwriting in that film. I always say there are four writers in Satya: Anurag and I (who are officially credited), then Ram Gopal Verma, of course, who directed the film, and then the actors. A lot of things that weren’t in the script found their way in because of the actors. Satya was a bound script that the two of us wrote and then it was rewritten at the time of filming – because the actors improvised a lot. Then I got involved in the process and Anurag and I became co-writers. They had been working on the script – the idea, the characters, the world, etc.
I didn’t want to let go of the acting opportunity so I nodded a reluctant yes to co-writing the film as well.Īt that point, Anurag (Kashyap) was working with Ramu as an assistant. After that he said he wanted me to be one of the writers on the film as well. I loved the character and I thought it was a great opportunity for me as an actor. But what happened was that when I met Ram Gopal Verma, he offered me a role in the film, and told me about the character.
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He was a big and respected director and I was working out ways in my head about how to say “No” to him. One day, Ram Gopal Verma called me and asked me to meet him for writing his next film.
So, at the time, I wasn’t really keen on becoming a writer. Film is a director’s medium and although you may have your own ideas, you’re working towards the director’s vision. Because film writing is not like writing a novel where you are sitting alone, ideating with yourself. And writing for others becomes even more difficult. Honestly, writing is a rather tedious process for me. Tell us about writing it while also playing the iconic Kallu Mama.At the time, I had come to Bombay, people started knowing me as an actor but very few people such as Shekhar Kapoor and Sudhir (Mishra) knew that I wrote as well. As a schoolboy, Satya changed my perception of cinema.