10 years of Neerja EXCLUSIVE: Ram Madhvani recalls Shabana Azmi shooting challenging scenes while her mother was in hospital; also shares how Sonam Kapoor agreed for the film before screenplay was even written: “Sonam was always on board” 10 : Bollywood News

Neerja Bhanot was a head purser (senior cabin crew personnel) in a flight which was hijacked by a group of terrorists in September 1986 in Karachi. She sacrificed her life while trying to save passengers during the hijacking. She was also an accomplished model. Her sacrifice is remembered even today through the Neerja Bhanot Award given to individuals who show bravery in pressing situations.

10 years of Neerja EXCLUSIVE: Ram Madhvani recalls Shabana Azmi shooting challenging scenes while her mother was in hospital; also shares how Sonam Kapoor agreed for the film before screenplay was even written: “Sonam was always on board”Filmmaker Ram Madhvani’s Neerja (2016) has also played a major role in keeping the memory of her bravery alive. The film saw Sonam Kapoor essay the character of Neerja Bhanot while Shabana Azmi and Yogendra Tikku played her parents.

As Neerja completed 10 years today, Ram Madhvani looked back at the film and shared some interesting bits from its making in an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama.

What do you feel when you look back at Neerja after 10 years?

I am full of gratitude obviously for the love it has received. I think it was one of those films that got all the four successes that one would wish for – financial, not for us as we were not the producers, critical success, personal success for me and mass success. To get all four successes together is a very rare thing. So, I am happy.

Most importantly, I am happy that I made people cry. Tragedy is something that we have forgotten. It’s a tragic story but, still, it is inspiring and motivating on how a family overcomes the loss of their child. That is what really hit people and got them going. And, obviously, because Shabana ji, Sonam and everybody in the film and the work that they did. Thanks to Fox Star, Vijay Singh and Rucha Pathak, who backed it. Also Uday Shankar who was at Fox Star at that time. And I always thank Amita Madhvani, who was the associate producer of the film.

What really drew you towards this story?

I have to first thank Atul Kasbekar because he was chasing me for 3 to 5 years to try and make something together. We kept talking about stuff and then one day he called me up and mentioned about (writer) Saiwyn Quadras. As soon as he told about Neerja, I immediately said yes because my friend Ayesha Sayani had worked with Neerja (Bhanot) in her last ad. She (Neerja) directly went from the shoot to the plane (which got hijacked). That was a big deal because I knew what had happened. Plus, my wife’s closest friend Elli was in school with Neerja. These were people who knew Neerja; I didn’t know her.

Obvious, it then took us a year and half to two years to work on it together with Saiwyn and Sanyuktha (Chawla Shaikh), our co-writers.

Neerja is considered Sonam Kapoor’s career best performance. Was she always your first choice?

Yes. When Kasby spoke to me, he even said that Sonam is interested. Before even the screenplay was even written, Sonam, Atul, myself and Saiwyn, we all went to meet the family (of Neerja Bhanot) in Chandigarh. We met Neerja’s mother, who is a very inspiring lady. It was something in which Sonam was always on board.

What was your brief for Sonam? What kind of discussions you had with her?

I work in a very different way than most people. I call is System 360, as you know. This was the first time I was doing it with four cameras. And we were doing it with long takes. There were workshops but there were no rehearsals. Plus, I told her that the hijackers would not meet her and there will be no rehearsals with them and even the passengers would not meet her. So, we did a whole system of how to make it more real.

When I told her about System 360 and the reason why I do it to get reality, she was so supportive and she signed up to the system. That is really what made it work. All the actors – Sonam, Shabana, Jim, Sheykhar – they all knew that this was the way I was going to be working. We don’t use film lights. What was nice is that Sonam agreed to do it in the way and submit it in the process.

Neerja marks Jim Sarbh’s debut. How did you find and cast him?

Thanks to Kanika (Berry), my casting director. We did a lot of testing. Jim was earlier meant to play another role for us, which was of one of the other hijackers. And then we felt he is the right guy for this particular role. It was just through an audition process. There were many auditions. It was not just one audition. Then we finally narrowed it down to Jim because he was just the right guy. Jim is so versatile and talented.

Casting music composer and singer Sheykhar Ravjiani as Neerja’s love interest was a huge surprise

Again, it was Atul’s idea. It was a cameo. So, we wanted somebody who would bring a fresh reality to it. It was thanks to Sheykhar that he said yes he will do it.

Did he instantly agree?

Yes, he did. That was very sweet of him. Then he even agreed to sing a song in it, though Vishal Khurana did the music.

As it was the first time Sheykhar was acting in a movie, did you give him any specific instructions?

No, because a lot of people, like my 250 passengers, I don’t treat them as junior artistes; they are senior artistes. My background is in many ways my foreground. So, I do a lot of workshopping. In that workshopping, they get comfortable and begin to understand their role. I don’t do rehearsals. But once they agree to workshops and they know what they are doing, obviously the system makes them spontaneous. It’s a very actor-friendly system. There are no marks, I don’t day “action” and “cut”. I make it almost feel like they are comfortable in real life.

Neerja also had a phenomenal performance from Shabana Azmi, especially during her speech in the end. Was there any improvisation in that scene?

No. Shabana is someone who respects the written word. She comes from a writing family. This was Sanyuktha and Saiwyn making sure that everything was on paper. Shabana learns her lines. Her mother was in the hospital while we were shooting. I remember going to the hospital the day before the shooting. She told me how she was trying to do it while she was with her mother in the hospital. So, it was a big emotional pressure for her to come the next day to actually shoot. Hats off to Shabana. She was prepared and all there and that is her dedication, work ethic and the kind of person she is, you know. She pulled it off. She is an actor who comes prepared.

You have shown in the film that Neerja is a huge Rajesh Khanna fan. Was it because you could include his iconic dialogue from Anand – “Zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahin”? It fully suits her life too

(laughs) We know that we have lost the tragic hero in our cinema. We have the action hero, comic hero, romantic hero. But we have lost the tragic hero. And Rajesh Khanna was our tragic hero. Meena Kumari was our tragic heroine. Also Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan when he played Devdas. So, I knew one would be, in a way, paying tribute to the depiction of the tragic hero because Neerja is, in a way, a tragic hero. That’s why we said this is the person we should pay tribute to.

You made your debut with Let’s Talk, which released in 2002, and then your second film Neerja released in 2016. What was the reason for such a long gap between both the films?

It was a 14-year gap. There is no pun intended over there because my name is Ram (laughs). I did try and make other work. It’s just that sometimes movies are miracles when they happen. The birth of a movie is like a miracle. Lots of things have to fall into place and I think now when I look back, the great writer in the sky made sure that the film I made next was Neerja. In between, I did work a lot in a lot of projects that didn’t really happen. Not because of any other reason but because that’s the nature of our business.

What are your forthcoming projects?

Well, there is a movie that is been discussed. But I will tell you more about it later. Like they say, when you are pregnant, you can’t speak about it for the first three months (laughs). So, I will wait until it gets a little sooner to announcement and once things get a little more final. It’s the nature of our filmmaking that it’s better to speak about it after it’s done. So, there is a film and also a series being discussed. We also made a film on Virtual Reality using AI. The VR is a five-minute film on the Bhagavad Gita. That’s under the new company that we have started – Equinox Virtual.

Also Read: Sonam Kapoor drops posts about her baby shower: From her ethereal look to sacred and traditional ceremony, it was a celebration wrapped in love