For 35-year-old debutant writer-director Sanamjit Talwar, it wasn’t an easy beginning in Bollywood. Coming from America to India in order to make films, this ‘desi’-at-heart youngster first decided to showcase his talent with a 15 minutes short film.
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| view DISHKIYAOON stills |
However, one chance encounter with Harman Baweja changed the course of his career as he got enough motivation from the actor to convert his 15-page script into a full-blown feature film.
Result was an out and out action-drama-thriller DISHKIYAOON. Once everything was on paper and he had made up his mind to rope in Harman as his lead, it was time to fetch a producer.
‘I took the script to Shilpa (Shetty) and she loved it too. I was surprised to see her confidence in me even though I hadn’t made the film,’ chuckles Sanamjit.
This was way back in 2011 when Harman had just delivered WHAT’S YOUR RAASHEE?. Though the actor was critically appreciated, in an industry where box-office speaks the loudest, the call wasn’t quite in the actor’s favour.
‘Shilpa point blank asked me ‘Why Harman?’. I just told her that first and foremost, I hadn’t even gone to another actor. Secondly, I was so convinced that Harman was going to be my ‘Vicky Kartoos’ (name of his character in the film). I had this faith that since Harman had done four films already, woh achchi acting toh kar hi lega. I had this confidence in myself that I would be able to extract a fantastic performance out of him.’
Fortunately for him, Harman too was raring to go that only made Sanamjit further sure that it was going to be him and no one else for DISHKIYAOON.
‘Harman was so charged up about DISHKIYAOON and this is the only film he has signed in last five years. He wanted to do something solid this time around and believed that this was going to be THE film for him. He used to tell me that ‘Sanamjit, tu dekhna, main faad ke rakh doonga’,’ smiles the director.
One hopes it is indeed a ‘faadu’ outing indeed once this Sunil Lulla and Shilpa Shetty production releases all over on 28th March, 2014.
