Were you able to convince Shabana to join your cast because of her relationship with Farhan and Zoya?

It took a year-and-a-half to convince Shabana so I’d like to believe it was my perseverence and hard work that finally got her nod. It took two rewrites but it had to be Boman and Shabana so I hung on like an octopus. My favourite moment in the film is a scene in the boat that involves these two.

Casting 12 actors couldn’t have been easy. We were constantly hearing about drop-outs and new recruits?

Casting took Zoya and me around two years. It’s gruelling coordinating the schedules of a dozen extremely busy actors. We were constantly juggling with date problems. Then you had to get the pairing right. For Abhay we screen-tested several young girls but no one seemed right. Then I saw Minissha in Yahaan.I liked her freshness and put Abhay and her in front of the camera. We were not only looking at actors who suited the part but also wanted to cast against type. That was how we came to think of Dia (Mirza) who’s very cool for the role of traditional Gujarati girl with a phobia about sex. Kay Kay (Menon) too is known as an intense actor but we signed him up for a light role. He was a revelation!

His dancing certainly was. Even his friends had no clue Kay Kay could put Govinda to shame with his hippy-hippy shake-shakes.

... contd.