Is KKC a director’s professional tribute to cinema or a film lover’s fond recollection of an era gone by?
It’s a tribute to the movies. The 1950s and ’60s were exciting times in not only Indian, but also world cinema with discoveries happening in every field of filmmaking. KKC is about that time, the cinema and two people—writer-director Zaffar and actress Nikhat— caught up in the wild passionate world of the movies. It’s a very complicated, passionate and difficult story of love, work, ambition and sexual politics.

Like Kagaz Ke Phool, KKC explores a director-actress relationship. Were you wary of comparisons?
I am a great admirer of Guru Dutt and I think Pyasa and Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam are two of the greatest popular films ever made. If I have to take one film to an island with me, it will be Sahib Biwi... I love it. But Kagaz Ke Phool is an indulgent film that wallows in despair. The film industry is not such a despairing place. If somebody tells me the story of Kagaz Ke Phool, I won’t make that film. Kagaz Ke Phool was a lament while Khoya Khoya Chand is a tribute to the movies.

Are the characters of Zaffar and Nikhat inspired by Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman?
At a time when Guru Dutt and Waheedabai worked, my characters were also there in the industry. There’s even a shot in KKC where you think it’s Guru Dutt passing by in a frame, and if KKC is dedicated to anyone, it’s him. I love Guru Dutt and his rhythm. But I am not making a peep show into his life.

What made you cast Soha Ali Khan in a complex lead when she is yet to make her mark as a leading lady in any Hindi film? Wasn’t Vidya Balan the original choice?
Though Vidya was first considered for the role, by the time the final script was ready, we realised that we couldn’t have her play an 18-year-old as the film begins with Nikhat in her late teens. Soha seemed the perfect choice and it’s wonderful that we stuck to her. She grabbed the role with both hands and prepared for three months. KKC can be called her re-debut. She plays a teen struggling actress peddled into the film world by her mother, who becomes a superstar and then goes downhill due to alcoholism before finally bouncing back in the end. I am not sure if there is anything called number one or two in the industry today, but Soha is as good as the best. After this film, you will have in her an actress who can essay any role.

Shiney Ahuja is perhaps the only lead actor you have repeated.
Shiney sort of cast himself. We had just made a film together and his face came to me while I was writing the character of Zaffar. Shiney is a wonderful and nuanced actor. If you see the end of Hazaron Khawishen Aisi, where he is cowering, screaming and begging for mercy in front of the two cops, who beat the hell out of him, there’s so much of truth in it that I don’t think there is any actor in India today, who can do that scene. It’s a challenge. Naturally, with a person who you can take that far, you form a kind of relationship and if there’s a part for him in my films, I will always cast him. But my next film Tera Kya Hoga Johnny is with Neil Mukesh; so it’s not as if Shiney is there in all my films.

What is your next film Tera Kya Hoga Johnny about?
In a Mumbai trying to be Shanghai, who gives a damn about a boy selling coffee on its roads. Johnny is a typical Mumbai character, a boy-man who performs a very important function of selling coffee every night and then there are three people who wonder what’s going to become of him. Johnny too wonders what’s going to become of them because if they make it, he will make it. One of these three characters is a boy called Pervez, who’s in Mumbai after his family was affected by the Gujarat riots and is involved with a married woman who happens to be a policeman’s wife. Then there’s Preeti played by Soha, who doesn’t want anything but is getting everything courtesy the magic of Mumbai. Karan Nath, a corporate whiz kid going down the hill due to drugs, plays her boyfriend and there’s a hijra played by Saurabh Shukla who’s like a mother figure to Johnny. It’s the story of this wild underground and what happens when Johnny wants to get out of the city.

Be it Dharavi, Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin or Chameli and even KKC and now Tera Kya…, Mumbai is a recurring backdrop for your stories.
Mumbai is the only place where Indians are allowed to kind of reinvent themselves. There is a preset thing about Indians having to be this or that in all other places, including the metros. For instance, if you are born into a particular family in Kolkata, you have to follow certain behavioral patterns, but in Mumbai you can lose yourself and be anonymous. You can reinvent yourself and become someone else. That’s the magic of the city and it also has all the contradictions of this country. Its problems are not hidden or camouflaged like in Delhi. It’s a wonderful place that has allowed me to be who I am and that’s why I always come back and do my bit for the city.

Which directors have excited you with their work?
I would always watch out for directors like Raju Hirani, who’s simply brilliant; Anurag Kashyap despite what people say about No Smoking; Ashutosh Gowariker, Nikhil Advani, Jaidep Sahni’s work as a writer, which is very interesting, Navdeep Singh, who made Manorama Six Feet Under. I am sure one day Sanjay Leela Bhansali will make a great film. He hasn’t made a great film yet, irrespective of what his admirers say but one day when he has more confidence, stops being excessive, does not want to prove what a big master he is… that day he will make a great film. I believe that because he is a director, who’s at least in search of a language and wants to tell a story visually and has a specific style.