In Search of Versatility

Five years after she debuted with a quirky comedy, director Reema Kagti makes a suspense drama.

When Aamir Khan is part of a film, there are bound to be talks about his controlling attitude. However, Reema Kagti, the director of his next , Talaash, puts these rumours to rest. "I just locked my final edit. And I can say that it is the film I set out to make," she says. Kagti has waited a long while for her second film. After Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. that released in 2007, she took to writing her second. "But things were somehow not falling into place. It was really frustrating because I am not a patient person. But then I started to believe that things will happen when it is the right time," she says. The movie's delayed release also added to her woes. "All's well that ends well," says Kagti, awaiting the audience verdict on November 30 when Talaash releases.

After a quirky comedy like Honeymoon Travels, one thing Kagti was sure of was to work in a different genre. "As a filmmaker, you constantly need to be challenged. At the end of my life, I want to be remembered as a versatile filmmaker," says Kagti. Talaash — with a story bordering on suspense and drama — is a film where she needed competent actors and not just stars. Hence, Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor and Nawazuddin Siddiqui were her first choices. "It was very easy for them to keep their persona aside and play the characters they were assigned. We shot at real locations, yet all these actors complied and did not complain even once," she says. With Khan playing the cop, Kagti's biggest challenge was to make his role different from other such characters in films. "I wanted his character to be rooted in emotion but still be mainstream and appealling," she adds.

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