EXCLUSIVE | 'Kal Ho Naa Ho' and 'Freedom At Midnight' director Nikkhil Advani: 'After Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Salaam-E-Ishq was possibly the biggest cast ever but unfortunately...'

Nikkhil Advani has a show called Freedom At Midnight coming up on Sony LIV from November 15 and in an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the filmmaker went into details about creating and crafting this web-series, assembling an interesting ensemble, and much more.

Edited excerpts from the interview

How has it been like directing this web-series and telling this crucial and important story?

It has been exhausting. It has been highly exhausting, but it has been extremely satisfactory or satisfying also because when I read the book for the first time, I did not think I was going to be a filmmaker at that point, but I think that if you keep revisiting the book whenever you get the opportunity, the only thing is that how can this be, how can this story be told.

When everything starts falling into place, whether it’s the writing, whether it is the research, whether it is the production, it is all the prep work that we did, and now to see it unfolding, seeing people appreciate all the small small things, that we’ve done is very very satisfying.

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What were the discussions that happened for the casting of the show?

So the casting the casting of any film or show is usually several meetings that happen between the direction team, the producers as well as the casting team. In this case, it is a little different primarily because the objective was to try and come so close to what these actually iconic figures look like physically as well as in every respect. First thing obviously is physical because that’s the first thing you see. In this case, Jagdish Dada who was our hair makeup expert and prosthetic expert was part of the team.

He used to sit in all the casting meetings and he was the final call. He was the first person who said, ‘Okay this you guys think these guys are good actors but I can’t do nothing with them.’ I can’t make his nose go into the same space or I can’t make him whatever, that kind of stuff. You only have 12 hours of shooting so the first thing we did is understand that Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, these were our heroes. So do we really need to cast other heroes? Let’s just cast good actors. So basically it boiled down to some incredible actors and options available. And then they were not allowed to do anything for a year and a half. I didn’t want my Mahatma Gandhi to be standing at the back and doing some ridiculous scene. I don’t have control over that.

I don’t have control over what other actors go out and do, and I want to have that control because I just felt that they are not playing any character. So the thing was that, once again, when you said, tell an actor, you can’t do work for a year and a half, you only do this. That also that brings it down to even if even a smaller group of people that you can work with. I’m very glad that whether Chirag, Siddhant, Rajendra Chawla is someone I wanted to work with but he refused not to do daily soaps.

Be it Kal Ho Naa Ho, Salaam-E-Ishq, Mumbai Diaries or this show, there is something grand and sweeping about your stories. What’s the brief you give to your team and how is your own prep in terms of sets, in terms of costumes and locations?

I mean the brief is, in the case of Freedom At Midnight, the brief is is very clear. This is the script, this is the time, this is the book. Read the book, read the scripts. There is so much research available out there, there are so many photographs available out there. We have to get the look and feel of the period between 1946-1948. It’s very very important. Also, it is very important for the production design team, the art team, as well as the DoP team to understand that I was going to be going from a real footage, which is our footage of my actors into real footage.

What is Lord Mountbatten wearing? Is he wearing a suit? Is he wearing a jacket? It all became very important so firstly we had to narrow down to ’this is the footage we are going to use.’ We’re hundred percent going to be using this footage.

You have worked with the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, John Abraham. We now get actors like Siddhant and Chirag. How is your brief to them. Do you ever enact your scenes to them?

Do I ever enact a scene? I’m a very bad actor, so I don’t enact any scene. My wife says that everything for you starts from number 10 only. There is no 123456789. Everything is drama and melodrama. They all are great actors, be it Rajendra Chawla, Chirag, Siddhant, or even Luke, who plays Mountbatten. I think half my job gets done in making sure that we’ve got an actor who can enter the set and say, ok, you prepared for the last 2 months for this scene. I’m going to do the scene in a different way, and they don’t get scared, they don’t get frightened. They don’t get flustered by it.

That sets the director free. So I don’t do anything. I just tell them what to do. Working with tremendous talent, whether it’s Konkona, Richa, or anyone, they are so good, they have honed their craft so well that I don’t have to bother tell them anything. I will take them in some other way only if I tell them to do something. I will do say something. I don’t look at it from the performance point of view, I look at it from the graph of the scene point of view, because when especially you are doing long form, when you are doing 15 episodes, you are shooting 15 episodes at same time, sometimes on the same, on the set on the same day you are doing episode 2, scene number 5, and then you are doing episode 5, scene number 10, then you are doing, because it’s in the same location. Right? Everything is determined by the fact that, can I go back to this location?

Do I need to go back to this location? No, I don’t want to go back to this location. What is the scheduling? So all the actors have to be a, prepared on this particular day, I am not going to be doing only a scene from this particular episode. I am going to be doing a scene from the entire show.

Salaam-E-Ishq is a film I actually enjoyed, especially the music. Today, given the landscape of OTT blooming, it could make for a very enjoyable web-series, especially when there’s so much gore and violence, and it will be great to have a romantic web show of such massive scale.

I can send you the numbers of Monika Shergill and Netflix. A big part of the film was also the cast. After Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Salaam-E-Ishq was possibly the biggest cast ever. You have the likes of Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, John Abraham, Vidya Balan, Anil Kapoor, Govinda, Akshaye Khanna; you have an incredible cast. And then you have incredible music.

Unfortunately, the only thing I’m highly cynical about is I don’t know whether good music today works in our industry. Everybody wants music for the weekend and what’s the music for the week. What is my cool new thing which I can put on Instagram? Today, whenever you go for a wedding, Bole Chudiyaan has to play or Mehendi Laga Ke Rakhna. Nobody saw the film but Tenu Leke still plays at every wedding. T-Series should give me some money. I would love to do it, but maybe it is being explored, I don’t know, these conversations are on.