Why does your debut movie come at 36 though you have assisted Mahesh Bhatt and David Dhawan for years?
My first movie has come at the time when I wanted it to. All the time I’ve spent assisting such renowned directors has helped me learn the nuances of the work involved as a director. If I’d have done this any earlier, I may not have done the job as well as I’ve done in Kambakkht Ishq.

For a debut, you’ve managed to rope in some of the biggest names in Bollywood and Hollywood. How?
It is overwhelming that I managed to pull off such a star-cast and that I’m working with names like Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor from our industry and Brandon Routh, Denise Richards and Sylvester Stallone from Hollywood.

But I believe I managed that because I wrote my script with all the honesty and sincerity. It took a whole year of pre-production work but we slowly managed to make inroads into Hollywood.

What were the biggest challenges?
Getting into Hollywood was the toughest. It wasn’t easy to get in touch with the Hollywood stars since there’s a lot of red tape involved. I needed Akshay to play the body double to the biggest action stars and for a pin-up girl to play Akshay’s love interest so I had no other choice but to approach an ambitious cast.

It took time but we managed to make inroads via small and then big agents. We had to live in Los Angeles and do this but all was worth when they read the script and instantly agreed to act in the movie.

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