EXCLUSIVE Interview: In conversation with Atlee on Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan | Not Just Bollywood

If one has followed director Atlee’s filmography, he/she will realise that he is the master of popular films; the kind that we need to make a box-office success. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost’s Lachmi Deb Roy, the master filmmaker talks about his methodology in film making and why he considers himself to be a women oriented filmmaker.

Shah Rukh Khan and Atlee’s Jawan is a socio-political film which was inspired by real-life incidents like farmers’ suicide, defense and healthcare scam.

Edited excerpts from the interview:  

If Shah Rukh Khan is the king of hearts, you are the king of massy films. What is the strategy that you follow? Is it a conscious effort to make only massy films?

First of all, thank you and I loved what you just said and I want the interview to be in the same quote. To answer your question, I always stick to root. I stick to basics and that is my secret and my core ideology. Without a root a tree or a branch can’t stand. My roots are the masses and basic emotions and that’s how I am able to commit and make something that reaches the hearts of the masses. I try to connect with the emotions of the masses and that is how I end up making a massy film.

My idea was to bring in the right emotion in the film and that’s how we cried in the film, got motivated in the film and that’s how I got inspired by what I read on news while making the film. I think a film is not just about entertaining. You need to take something back home. I think we are taking back good emotions and that is the cause of Jawan’s success.

On the bumper hit of Jawan…were you expecting this kind of a response?

You watched the film, you were happy and to see everybody happy, my happiness has multiplied in leaps and bounds. I am super-duper happy. My hard work didn’t go to waste.

What is the methodology that you follow? Getting all the actors together, how challenging is it?

 All the actors are going to judge as to what I have done in the past and how good my present script is. Both SRK and I have worked very hard on getting an ensemble.  Then we started pitching the story to the actors and thankfully they agreed in the first call itself. We didn’t have any second choices for any actor. Actually if you see all my films are with ensemble casting. Here too in Jawan we have two characters of Shah Rukh Khan one is Vikram Rathore and the other one is Azad. I had to justify these characters. That was the only challenge. Every character of mine has an important presence in the film. SRK killed the roles of both the characters (Vikram Rathore and Azad) like a beast.

It’s a national film. I read in a Variety magazine that Jawan is the second highest watched film in the world. I always make my films for the global audience. I don’t like to restrict my film to a certain region or a certain group of people.

On the woman’s role in cinema and I really liked the way you gave equal importance to all women characters in Jawan.

Everyone calls me a hero filmmaker and a mass filmmaker. But I am a women oriented writer. So, if you take my first film, Raja Rani and Teri is about woman safety. All my movies have a woman angle. Even SRK is the same when it comes to dealing with woman oriented films and that’s how we clicked. Both of us respect women. That’s how Jawan is highly respected because of its ideology.

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