Sanjay Leela Bhansali is considered one of Hindi cinema’s most influential filmmakers, and among the most celebrated directors of his generation. But there was a time when he was an assistant to Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Bhansali worked with the filmmaker on the film 1942: A Love Story, which is where he honed his skills as a director of musical sequences.
In an old interview, Vinod Chopra looked back on working with Bhansali, and said that he takes pride in spotting talent and admitting that others are often better at some aspects of filmmaking than him. Chatting with Bollywood Hungama, he said, “Sanjay Bhansali, ab toh woh Sanjay Leela Bhansali hogaya hai. Woh mera assistant tha. MTV mein kuch award milne they 1942 ko direction ke liye, maine usko bola jaa le. Ab toh zor se chillata hai, tab toh ghabrate ghabrate award lene gaya tha (Sanjay Bhansali, who now goes by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, was my assistant. I won an award for 1942, and I sent him to collect it. He screams a lot these days, but back then, he was a meek guy).”
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According to Vinod, Bhansali was too scared to even summon Madhuri Dixit to set when time was running out one day. “He was a very different guy, but I knew that he was talented. And I’m so happy when I see his cinema; I say, ‘Wow, he did it’. How do you spot talent? You have to be honest with yourself. Inside me, there must be some humility that I see talent greater than myself.”
In a chat at the Kellogg School of Management earlier this year, Vinod Chopra also spoke about his first meeting with Rajkumar Hirani, who also worked under him before going on to become a legend in his own right. “Sanjay Bhansali was my assistant. Now he’s called Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He was cutting a trailer for 1942: A Love Story. Sanjay cut a terrible trailer, and I told him it wasn’t going to work. He then cut another trailer, which was also terrible. I asked him who was responsible for this. He said that he knew he couldn’t do it, so he’d asked another person to cut it instead. A skinny boy comes in. Now, I’m illiterate, so I swear a lot. I gave the boy some really bad gaalis.” This ‘boy’ happened to be Hirani.
Bhansali most recently directed the Netflix series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. During the show’s promotions, reports of his temper once again came to the fore.
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