Sajid Khan: I was misquoted on Housefull fetching 60 Cr + business

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Seeing-the-audience-laugh-is-better-than-sex-Sajid-Khan/articleshow/5690019.cms

So, Housefull is ready for release, and it is again a comedy. Why you exploring the comic genre again?

Heyy Babyy was not a comedy. It had more than 15 scenes of high emotional content with lots and lots of tears and drama, including the climax. I would say that Heyy Babyy was a drama which also had comedy in it. Having directed that, I decided to go in for a musical, romantic entertainer, which has comedy in it. Housefull is not just a comedy. It’s a complete entertainer. It has lots of romance, great songs and a lot of comedy too, and it has a very interesting plot.

So, can we call it a typical, masala Bollywood flick?

I don’t really agree with this term masala Bollywood flick. Will you call 3 Idiots a masala Bollywood flick? It also had emotion, drama and comedy. Similarly my movies are also based on the same content. So I would say my film is a complete entertainer.

Why do you go for multi-star cast?

When I was growing up in the 70’s the films which had the maximum influence on me where the big films of Manmohan Desai, Nasir Hussain, Prakash Mehra and Rajkumar Kohli. All these movies had a multi-star cast. I feel when you have a multi-star cast which can do justice to a particular subject, the audience enjoys it much more. At the end of the day, foolish are those filmmakers who feel that they want to showcase their talent. I am not one of those film makers. I want to make a film for the audience. I feel that I may not be the world’s greatest director, which I know I am not, but I am definitely the world’s greatest audience member. I love watching movies, I love movies more than most of the people, and I watch movies regularly. Whatever I know about movie-making is by watching movies only. And I make movies from an audience point of view.

Is this the main reason behind your claims that this film will be the biggest hit of 2010?

Yes, and it will be. Mark my words.

You have even promised Sajid Nadiadwala that the movie will do Rs 60 crore plus collection.

I didn’t say Rs 60 crore plus business. I said Rs 60 crores in the first week only in India, and I am saying this because I know what the audience wants. I am not talking about those 2 per cent intellectuals, or a 2 per cent non-film watching audience, who like small, realistic, boring films. My audience is bigger and Housefull is an entertainer which a five-year-old child to a 75-year-old person would enjoy.

Go on…

When I was writing this film, I knew that there is nothing in the world which is going to prevent me from opening up the doors of entertainment for the audience. Right from the first to the last frame, this is the film which completely entertains. I don’t like entertainment in the garb of nonsense or anything stupid or illogical.

But your kind of humour is also stupid and sometimes illogical, isn’t it?

See, I love stupid humour, don’t get me wrong, but that is only for shows, etc. For me, the hero of the film always has to be the screenplay or the story. That is why Housefull took so long to actually start making. The real shooting took only 65 days, but to get the film started it took me more than two years, because for a year and a half we were just writing the screenplay.

The same thing happened with Heyy Babyy. We got to know that you worked on the story of Heyy Babyy almost 18-20 times.

We had more than 35 drafts of Heyy Babyy. But its story was always a simpler one. Housefull on the other hand is an extremely complicated story.

Must be, one man, three women. And much more than that.

There are nine other characters in the film and the strength of the film lies in the fact that Akshay Kumar is not Akshay Kumar. He is playing a character and for me the biggest victory as a director is not that I have shot the movie well, or I have narrated the story well. Fair enough, all this is separate. The biggest victory for me lies in the fact that in the very first five minutes of the film, you disconnect from the fact that you are watching Akshay Kumar and you start believing that he is a character. The credit for this also goes to Akshay, because I feel that Housefull is easily his life’s best performance.

So, you think this movie will bring Akshay back in the number game, considering 2009 didn’t go that well for him?

Heyy Babyy did the overall business of Rs 100 crore worldwide. It was the first ever Akshay Kumar movie to touch the Rs 50 crore mark in India. In the same way this film will be the first Akshay Kumar movie in India to cross Rs 100 crore. Akshay will be at the top of his game after Housefull, and after this movie people will start worshipping Akshay.

You have repeated the hit-pair of Akshay and Ritesh in this film too. Do they get brownie points for being your friends or you believe that they are the best actors in Bollywood?
What you are saying is partly true, I do share a very good rapport with them because off-screen they are my closest buddies. But then I also feel that any film that is made and made with friends has become successful. I cannot make a film with an actor if he is not a friend of mine. Luckily for me, most of the people I know are friends. When you work with friends, the biggest advantage is that even when you are off camera with them, when you are not talking work, you understand each other and you enjoy each others company and you start realising their effects and their defects. And when you start working with them, you automatically bring forth those effects and start covering up those defects. I think that’s a very big advantage of working with actors who are friends. Also Akshay and Ritesh completely trust each other and love each other, so that helps. In Housefull, there are 4-5 scenes in the film wherein they will re-define what slapstick comedy is about. I have taken them to an absolutely new level of comedy which will take most other actors years to achieve.

How do you ensure such a bonding between your actors? There are no incidents of jealousy and insecurity reported amongst actors working in your movie.
(Laughs) That is because my actors become friends during the shooting. You should have seen Akshay, Ritesh and Fardeen on the first day before shooting. The fact is, Sajid Nadiadwala is my best friend, Akshay is like a brother to me, Ritesh is my best friend, Fardeen is my close buddy, so when all of us work together there is a certain amount of trust and comfort level, and that I think is of utmost importance. I do the same with my girls too. I treat my girls like my boys. That means we all sit together, eat together, go out together and hang out together, even when we are not shooting. So all that time well spent translates onto the screen as well.

Akshay’s character is again called Aarush in Housefull. Are you following the trend of Yash Raj and Suraj Barjatiya?
Why only Yash Raj or Suraj Barjatiya, look at Salim-Javed, Amitabh’s character was always called Vijay. I would never follow anybody’s trend, but like I said, the cinema that I am influenced by is the cinema of 1970s and 80s, where the movies were a little more pure about the entertainment. That is the kind of cinema and that is the kind of entertainment I would like to re-establish in today’s day and age. I am not outdated in my thinking, I just feel that if something is entertaining then why not update and upgrade. Yes you are right that in my movies Akshay’s character is always Aarush, and if I’ll make a third film, there too his character’s name would be Aarush, unless and until he is playing the title role of some other name.

Any plans to go back to acting? We saw you last in Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate.
No yaar, absolutely no. I didn’t act in Jhooth Bole…, I acted in a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film, that’s the difference. Had Hrishida asked me to just stand behind one actor, without speaking even a line, I would have still done that also because he is a legend yaar. I have grown up on his films and for me it was the opportunity of a life time. Although from day one I knew that, that film would not work, because it came at a time when David Dhawan films were working. But I never complained because I was working with Hrishikesh Mukherjee. After that acting offers and all came, but I never saw myself as a hero’s brother or a sidekick. What was always important to me was what I like doing. I like making films and I’m telling you, it is the greatest high to stand on the last row, while your film is going on and watching the audience reaction from behind.

To see them laugh, clap, cry; it’s the greatest feeling. It’s better than sex, trust me.