Interview: Ashutosh Gowarikar

"I am not thinking of the awards right now."

He's the same age as Aamir Khan, his producer for Lagaan and the two have been friends. Today, after the unsuccessful Baazi they did together, Ashutosh Gowarikar has every right to feel vindicated as Lagaan rides the wave of success. He can now afford to sit back and do a post mortem of its success.

How do you feel about the success of Lagaan now?

The film has done very well both here and abroad and I'm very happy with Gracy. Of course Aamir is a favourite with audiences so he only adds to any film.

Did you ever consider Nandita Das for the role? 

We auditioned her but found that she looked too old for the role so we didn't cast her. She was keen to do it so she auditioned for it.

You've recently been felicitated in France?

Yes. At the Lucarno film festival, we got the audiences award. This is the selection of the audience and it is quite amazing that French, Italian and German people are willing to sit through a 3 hour 40 minute film to watch cricket when they don't have any conception of
it. If you speak of the USA you can say they have an equivalent called baseball but these people are completely at sea about it. Their response was tremendous. They gave applause during and after the film. We're to go to the Toronto film festival next.

Are you expecting any awards this year?

I'm not thinking of the awards right now. I'm thinking of how to get people all over the world to see the film. Because through the Lucarno festival we have achieved an interest in France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Netherland, Portugal-these are countries which don't see Hindi films at all. Even the normal films, which are released in the UK and USA, are not released in these countries. It's great to have our film releasing in these countries -South America, North Africa, etc.

Isn't Aamir getting more credit than you in the film?

No, not really. See he's a huge star not only in terms of popularity but also in terms of talent. Also, this happens to be his first home production so obviously a lot of attention is going to get diverted there which is fine really because ultimately the very fact that Aamir produced the film helped me to make the film exactly as I wanted to make it. He gave me free rein and if I wanted 10,000 people for the climax he gave me 10,000 people. There were no questions asked. There were no curbs on creativity. So whatever name he gets, the film gets too and ultimately I get it.

Had you really thought of casting Shahrukh in the role? In retrospect, would he have suited it?

I think he would have but he would have been a different kind of Bhuvan. See, Bhuvan's definitions change and so does the entire script change a little bit it's like a paradigm shift. See, every actor imparts his personality to a character. The moment he does that
the character undergoes a bit of change. When he does that everything around him changes and hence the scenes would become slightly different. Because ultimately you are applying your star power, charisma to your village character. I'd even thought of
casting Abhishek Bachchan , he would have made another kind of Bhuvan but he was  to do his first film and they opted for JP Dutta's Refugee. It was the correct decision because I had two not very successful films behind me-Baazi and Pehla Nasha.

What is up now?

I am working on a new script but because Lagaan has been such a big hit there is a lot of post release work. If a film flops, you mope around for a few days but move on. Here it's still creating excitement so there's a lot happening around it. We've teamed up with
Britannia to have a cricket match in December. Winners of the Britannia contest play against Lagaan eleven.

Ashutosh surely deserves all this success he's getting. The taste of success is even sweeter since he was considered a has-been after giving two unsuccessful films. Goes to show that true talent is ultimately recognized after all.