Hansal Mehta talks about the staggering success of his recent show, Scam 1992: The Hansal Mehta Story and also revisits the scars of his film Simran, and how it affected his mental health.
Picture Courtesy: Official Instagram Account/Hansal Mehta
Hansal Mehta has been a prolific filmmaker for the last two decades. He's known for some resounding and resonating films like Shahid, Aligarh, Citylights, Omertà, and is now basking in the glory of his show, Scam 1992's staggering success. In one of his recent interviews, he talks about the series and also revisits the scars of Simran.
In an interview with HuffingtonPost India, when asked about the show, Mehta said, "I've been a huge fan of these kinds of dramas. I was excited to get my hands on a project as complex as this. Oliver Stone's Wall Street is one of my favourite films. More recently, films like The Big Shot and Margin Call, which was about the Lehman Brothers, topped my list. It's a phenomenal, underrated film."
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He added, "As for TV shows, I love Billions. How much can you understand that? But once you find out more, it all starts making sense. I realised that along the way, people pick the story up. You have to be respectful and mindful of the audience's intelligence. At times I feel we dumb it down to such an extent, it's disrespectful to the audience. When we were writing, it was a conscious call to not disrespect them but instead explain it in a way that didn't come across as unnatural."
When asked about his 2017 film Simran and what was the impact of its failure, this is what the filmmaker had to say, "It was a painful time. Every day. Beyond that, it's difficult to speak about it. I don't even revisit it. There was a time after the film released, I went through a very low phase mentally. Took therapy. The film affected my mental health. I went into a shell, I did not want to meet people. I was in a period of very low self-esteem."
The filmmaker also stated that although he enjoyed Kangana Ranaut's company off the sets, something went wrong while the film was being made. He revealed, " It went out of my control completely. That's not a happy situation to be in. Other than dealing with the fact that she completely took charge of the set and began directing other actors, I lost a lot of money too. Which had nothing to do with her. Financially it hit me badly. I was stupid enough to sign some papers when the film was stuck for some reason, which got me into a financial and legal tangle. So almost a year-and-a-half, there was arbitration going on in court. I've sort of emerged back."
The filmmaker is now collaborating with Rajkummar Rao once again for the sports-comedy Chhalaang that's all set to arrive on Amazon Prime Video on the eve of Diwali.
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Also Read: Hansal Mehta: I Relive Their Journeys Through My Stories
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