Rajkumar Hirani shares his unique creative process, explaining why he locks himself in a room before starting a new film. Discover how this isolation sparks his cinematic genius and fuels his storytelling.
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00:00When you start to make a movie, I remember once you told me that you lock yourself in
00:05a room and if you don't cry and laugh at the same time, then you are not going to write
00:11that.
00:12So tell me a little bit about that process.
00:15What makes a Rajkumar Hirani film a Rajkumar Hirani film?
00:19Oh God, that's a tough one.
00:22Anyway, I think first of all, big congratulations.
00:26I'm actually personally so happy to see screen come back because I was just telling somebody
00:31my earliest memory of screen is, I grew up in Nagpur and there used to be a small newspaper
00:37stall just right outside my dad's office and those were many years back, 30-40 years back,
00:44I don't know when I'm talking about.
00:46So film magazines used to stop me from reading them.
00:51But my dad used to allow me to read screen because he said, no, it's a newspaper.
00:55It used to come in a format which was like a newspaper, so that's my earliest memory
00:59of screen.
01:00So a big congratulations for being back.
01:04Okay, now coming to your question, see, I don't know, I wish one could dissect your
01:16own process.
01:17We've never sat down and tried to dissect, say, that this is a formula to make a pan-India
01:24film.
01:25You work so much with your own gut feel, I think.
01:30I think any filmmaker, how they choose a subject is because that kind of a subject draws them.
01:38Somebody will make horror films, somebody will make thrillers, somebody will make human
01:43interest films because that subject draws them.
01:47And if it draws you, you have a little more knowledge about that subject, you have some
01:51interesting anecdotes about that, you want to say something about it.
01:55So in that journey, if you're close to, like if I'm doing a PK, so I obviously have a point
02:01of view about talking about religion or God, so, or even a three, just for that matter.
02:08So you believe in a certain way education should be, or I've lived in a hostel, so I've
02:13seen the life there and I want to say, I know there'll be interesting things to say.
02:18So when you start writing like that, first of all, only that way you can write.
02:24I don't think you can sit and really say that I'm going to write a pan-India film.
02:28Those things happen by themselves.
02:32You can't sit in because if you start sitting and writing like that, I think that's going
02:35to be the biggest mistake because then you'll say, oh, this person in LA will like this.
02:42Let me give him a rap there or, you know, in Bihar, let him give me an item song and
02:46then you'll try and make it like a Bhel Puri, which won't, so you, it's a, you have to go
02:53with your gut and write.
02:54It's organic, you're saying.
02:55Absolutely.
02:56Right?