Director Rohit Shetty said that he missed the good old days, when the film industry was more of a unit than it is today. He said that while he appreciates the technological advances that have made everybody’s job easier, he looks back on the days when filmmakers would come to each other’s aid with nostalgia. In an interview, the blockbuster filmmaker said that he values the ‘guru-shishya parampara’ of Indian culture, and that he has retained the same core team for decades.
Chatting with Film Companion ahead of the release of his big-budget streaming series Indian Police Force, Rohit revealed a humorous anecdote about reaching out to director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, whom he considers his ‘senior’, after watching his film 12th Fail. Recalling his interaction with the filmmaker, Rohit said, “He’s our senior. We have grown up admiring Parinda. We’d gone on the set of 1942: A Love Story. I still remember, there was a strike, but he was allowed to shoot because it was such a massive set. I know Manoj Sharma very well; 12th Fail is about him. He told me I should reach out to Vidhu sir, and he’d be happy to hear that I liked the film. He said, ‘Tereko achi lagi picture?’ I said, ‘Haan sir’. He said, ‘Chal ab wine ki bottle bhej’. That’s the senior-junior thing I miss.”
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Asked about the changes that he has observed in the film industry in the three decades that he has been a part of it, Rohit said, “We were like a family earlier. That I miss. It has become more practical now. But at the same time, it has become easier because of the computer graphics and Dolby.” He recalled, “I remember we were shooting a film called Haqeeqat at Film City, and there was another team working on a different film. They came to us asking for two film magazines because they had run out. We gave them, and the next day they returned.”
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He continued, “I was the chief AD in Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, and there’s a shot in the film where Kajol is crying beneath a big church in the rain. That was the Josh set. Nobody would do that today. They were shooting, and Ajay (Devgn) spoke to Mansoor Khan, and he said, ‘Yes, okay, just don’t shoot from these angles’.” Rohit said that people in the film industry were ‘fearless’ back in the day, but everybody is terrified of being trolled now.
Rohit is currently putting together one of the biggest films of his career, Singham Again, which will reunite stars Ajay Devgn, Ranveer Singh and Akshay Kumar alongside franchise newcomers Deepika Padukone and Tiger Shroff. But before that, he’ll unveil the cop universe’s first streaming project, Indian Police Force, starring Sidharth Malhotra, Shilpa Shetty and Vivek Oberoi.
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