Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap can write anywhere, including a rickshaw. The director has revealed how he had gone to meet John Abraham for a film about a “bad actor”, which the latter promptly turned down, saying that’s a perception people already have of him and he was looking to change that with a role where he could “perform”.
Anurag Kashyap said he had started thinking of No Smoking–about a self-obsessed, narcissist chain smoker who agrees to kick his habit to save his marriage and visits a rehabilitation center–as it was close to life, as people around him were asking him to quit filmmaking after his movies were finding difficult to release.
With an unreleased debut feature Paanch and Black Friday, which was made in 2004 but wasn’t released till 2007, Anurag Kashyap was in a different frame of mind when he thought of No Smoking. “I had three films in the same year, Black Friday, No Smoking and Return of Hanuman. Back then, I was just looking to make any film,” Anurag Kashyap said in Indian Express’ Creator X Creator.
“Black Friday was banned and Vishal Bhardwaj ji had then made Omkara. He called me and said, ‘See Omkara has worked, I can produce a film. Do you have a script?’ I had No Smoking! John Abraham called me, because he had worked on Water and Deepa Mehta had told him that he must work with Anurag, so he wanted to work with me. I was in such a desperate state, I had no money, nothing. I was in a rickshaw and I told John I am coming right away to meet him.”
The filmmaker said it was on the way to John’s residence that he started thinking of a new idea for him. “The story of No Smoking was already there on my mind, because it was paralleling my life, so I was writing that but thought who would do this film. In the rickshaw, I was going to meet John Abraham and usko sab log achcha actor nahi bolte the.
“So, I started thinking of a story in the rickshaw. I had not seen any film of his, but everybody used to say he is not a good actor. The person that I met was amazing! But in my head, I was coming up with a story of a bad actor, who is out of work. I went and met John and he said, ‘Yaar people already think I am a bad actor, why do you want me to do this film? Do you have something else where I can perform?'”
The filmmaker recalled how he then narrated him the idea of No Smoking, which to his surprise, the actor really liked. “John took a punt on me. He said let’s do this, but I had the entire story in my head and not on paper. He then gave me money, said go and write it. I took a flight and wrote No Smoking and Return of Hanuman in the US!
“When I returned to India, Vishal came in at the same time and said he could produce a film and I took No Smoking to him. And the film, about a failed actor, who has not made a career, became Ugly in 2013. So I wrote Ugly in a rickshaw, on my way to John Abraham’s house, in my head.”
Ugly starred Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh, Girish Kulkarni and Surveen Chawla among others. Anurag Kashyap is currently seen in Disney Plus Hotstar’s Bad Cop, where he is playing the role of a gangster. The show also stars Gulshan Devaiah, Harleen Sethi and Saurabh Sachdeva.
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