Renowned filmmaker Vikas Bahl, best known for directing and scripting the comedy-drama film Queen, is the creative force behind the action thriller film Ganapath: A Hero is Born. In an exclusive conversation with IWMBuzz.com, he shared his insights into the challenges and dynamics of bringing this exciting project to life. Read on:
Ganapath’s trailer is full of action, thriller, and drama. How challenging was it to mount the project?
Very difficult, I must say, because I had to go through a huge learning curve to pull it off. We all had to align ourselves, all the departments had to align ourselves to the things we’re making because it’s totally based on imagination. And imagination has no limit. So all of us had to, everybody had to bring their best skills on set. And it took us many, many months of trial and error and going right, going wrong for us to know where we are headed and what we are trying to create really. So I think the toughest part was to align all our imaginations into one film. I honestly had to pick and choose from my team’s imagination and see that we all get together and understand that this is what we are creating. It is a long journey from when you start writing and doing all the artwork to finally putting it together. So I think alignment of thought was the toughest part of putting this together.
Was it an obvious choice to cast Tiger Shroff given his skills as an action hero? And what about Kriti Sanon, how did she prepare for the role?
I didn’t know Tiger before I went with the script to him, but I took the story to him and I called him a few days back and I called his mother, who was also a great inspiration and support. I told him there’s nobody else in my life, in my imagination, who could have been better than Tiger, to play this character, and not just for the action, but the performance that he’s done. The way he has trained himself and the fact that while he’s an action hero in real life, he’s such a simple soul and such a simple guy that I needed the real character of the innocence and the action hero to come together in the film. I hope that comes together, and that’s a new thing for everybody to see. I don’t think I can think of anybody else other than Tiger or Kriti for that matter because Kriti is like the hero in the film. She has great entry shots and she has great action, and she’s done a great job of it. And the best was that when she had to learn nunchaku, we gave her the option of. We gave her the simpler option that you can learn only this much, and the rest we will manage in post. But she didn’t give us that choice. She went and learned everything. She’s done most of the action on her own. Honestly, if you’ve seen the trailer, she is a nunchuck fighter, and nunchuck is a very dangerous fighting experience because if one thing goes wrong you can hurt yourself very badly. She said no, I am going to learn. And she learnt and one day walked into the office with the nunchucks and she did a demo. And we were all just blown away. And hard work is just irreplaceable, and she has exceeded anything. And no wonder she’s won the national award because she gives it her heart and soul to anything and everything she’s doing.
Let’s talk about box office pressure: is 1000 crores a new norm to become a hit?
Please don’t put this pressure on me one day before the release. I am, as it is, very nervous. I would like more and more people to watch the film. I hope it lives up to the expectations because as you make bigger films, your audience keeps getting more and more vast. You have to live up to many more expectations. And that is the toughest part of making a film that is trying to reach out to more and more people. Because when you make for a limited audience, you know how they think, how they behave, what they do, and this is the kind of cinema they like. But when you make cinema that’s going to reach out to many more people, then you’re actually talking to yourself more than anybody else because you’re hoping to tell that how you think and what you believe in actually is what people like to watch and enjoy.
As a creator, how have you seen the storytelling landscape in India change after the rise of OTT?
I think there are two completely different platforms for storytelling, and I think both will coexist in a really beautiful way. OTT lets you tell stories in 10 hours and 5 hours. We don’t have that liberty in movies, but what we have in movies is that 500 people watch it together, they eat popcorn and they buy tickets. It’s an event for them. So OTT is something which is, I think, very individual, very indulging in a good way, and movies are a collective experience, it’s an event. Families watch it together. You go and get scared in the theatre together. You laugh in the theatre together. While it’s the same, the base is storytelling, but they’re two different experiences, and they both coexist beautifully in our world.
How important is VFX in the making of a film, like Ganapath?
It’s very important because, as I said earlier, the film is so much about imagination. When you think of imagination, you don’t have anything readily available for you. So everything you have to create so VFX plays a crucial role in bringing the imagination to life. I had to learn a lot from YouTube videos. Honestly, I had to go back to being a student to learn and understand VFX.
How was it working with the Big B of Bollywood: he looks very different and rather interesting in your film…
Every day is a new experience with him. He just walks in and makes anything and everything larger than life. Just his presence and aura are amazing. I had to make sure to use it very wisely in Ganapath because he is the voice of the film.