•Namrata Sharma Zakaria: Zoya, why did it take seven years to make this film?

Zoya Akhtar: I wrote it in 2001 after Dil Chahta Hai and Farhan and Ritesh Sidhwani wanted to produce it. We thought we would produce it but nobody wanted to play ‘Vikram’ (Farhan’s role). They thought it was negative. So we went to six actors. But beyond those six actors, I didn’t want anyone else for the role. So we put the script on the backburner. Meanwhile, I was executive producer for Lakshya and Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and I wrote two scripts. Then, suddenly, everything changed: corporate houses, multiplexes, films, stories—everything had changed. So I thought, why not make it now?

•Namrata S. Zakaria: Women directors seem more interested in mainstream cinema than ‘realistic’ cinema.

Zoya Akhtar: Every filmmaker wants his or her film to be commercially viable. I don’t understand why this kind of responsibility (of being realistic) is given to women filmmakers. I don’t know anybody who makes a movie and doesn’t want people to see it. Your own vision, your perspective, your style of telling the story should somehow bridge the commercial gap and be able to recover the money because it is an expensive art.

•Priyanka Sinha: What sets women filmmakers apart?

Zoya Akhtar: It is a very individual thing; it has nothing to do with gender. It is like saying, what is the difference between MF Hussain’s and Anjolie Ela Menon’s works, in terms of gender. I am surrounded by women who are filmmakers and nobody has had a hard time because they are women. Whether it is Reema, my mom, my cousin Farah or Ruchi Narain, who is a writer. But yes, something of me as a woman does inform Konkona’s character in Luck by Chance.

... contd.