Anees Bazmee: I am also the audience

Director Anees Bazmee has a reputation for success with films like Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998), No Entry (2005) and Welcome (2007). In the 1990s, the writer Bazmee was part of the successful team of director David Dhawan and actor Govinda with Aankhen (1993) and Raja Babu (1994).

Before the release of his latest film Mubarakan (2017), Bazmee told the gathered media that he became a writer under pressure while waiting to make his first film. Further, he said writing for comedy is tough.

“There is a slight difference between comedy and buffoonery," Bazmee said. "I feel when a writer doesn’t write well, it becomes very difficult for the actors. They get to know that there is no comedy in this scene and then they have to exaggerate. I knew this from the beginning, that if I have to write comedy, I have to write it well. Even when I direct, I give my actors one instruction, ‘Don’t do comedy.’ Comedy karne se comedy nahin aati.”

Bazmee stressed that if you want to make a good film, three things are required — script, script and script. Everything else is also important, he said, but the script is the soul of the film.

He went on to state that he is positive about the outcome of Mubarakan which was released yesterday. At the same event, Anil Kapoor had said that Bazmee was a writer-director who understood the pulse of the audience.

Bazmee elaborated, “I’m a writer-director, but if I like something and laugh, then I feel people will also laugh. Because the audience is not that different from me. I am also the audience.”

While Bazmee’s upcoming Aankhen 2 has stalled, there is no definite word as yet on the sequel to his 2005 hit, No Entry, either. The director said only producer Boney Kapoor would be able to confirm the status of the project.