'Sanjay Gupta had written Kaabil 2, Hrithik Roshan and I liked it': Rakesh Roshan

Sanjay Gupta

When I was abroad, Sanjay Gupta used to send recommendations to watch things on YouTube. He was a good friend and a very good soul. I never expected him to go so early in life. I enjoyed making Kaabil with him. When he narrated the script to Hrithik [Roshan] and me, I shook hands with him then and there and said we were going ahead with it.

Sanjay was a good technician and a capable director. He never did anything without asking me while filming Kaabil. After the shoot got over, I told him I couldn't have made this film as well as he had. I never once had to go on the sets.

He discussed everything before we shot. I was going to give him my next film whenever I thought of making one. He had been sitting on two or three subjects for two years, but we could not lock any of them. He had written the script for Kaabil 2. Hrithik and I had heard the script and liked it. We were working on it when, all of a sudden, this happened.

Sanjay was the second director [after Anurag Basu] to work with our banner. He was a commercial director with sound technical knowledge, including shot-taking and lighting. When I saw the first copy of Kaabil, I told him, ‘You have far exceeded my imagination'.

Harshvardhan Rane, Shabana Azmi and Rangita Nandy

He also sat with me on the third and fourth instalments of Krrish. We were close and practically met every day. He was an all-rounder in filmmaking. We would script together without any arguments, very calmly. If something was not good enough, he would come back with another idea, or I would. There was no ego between us. He would explain to actors what he wanted from them and [find a way] to extract what he envisioned.

Sanjay was attached to his team and was like family to everybody. Besides being a good director and technician, he was a very good human being, a good friend, family member, father and husband - rare qualities, but Sanjay had all of them.

Sanjay Dutt on X

(L-R) Sanjay Dutt and Sanjay Gupta. Pics/X, Instagram, Youtube

"Gupts, my brother. I still cannot believe that you are gone. We have shared so much together, so many memories and years of friendship. You have always been family to me, and that will never change. I will miss you, our conversations, and all the times we've spent together. We were just discussing ‘Kaante 2' recently. I will make ‘Kaante 2' in memory of you, my brother. Love you forever and always. Life will not be the same without you, brother. May God bless your soul (sic)"

Unfinished

Gupta was looking to revisit two of his films, ‘Kaante' and ‘Kaabil', while also developing a series on Shashikala Patankar. He was set to start a film, lead by Manoj Bajpayee, in two months. There was a book in the works too, say insiders

Some of his works

>> 1994 - ‘Aatish'
>> 1997 - ‘Hameshaa'
>> 2002 - ‘Kaante'
>> 2004 - ‘Musafir'
>> 2007 - ‘Dus Kahaniyaan'
>> 2013 - ‘Shootout at Wadala'
>> 2015 - ‘Jazbaa'
>> 2017 - ‘Kaabil'
>> 2024 - ‘The Miranda Brothers'