Mirzapur director Gurmmeet Singh on show's memes becoming cult on social media, upcoming film Phone Bhoot & more

The man behind blockbuster web shows like _Inside Edge_ and _Mirzapur_ , Gurmmeet Singh is set to entertain us with Masoom , which has released today on Disney+ Hotstar.  The gripping series stars  Boman Irani , Samara Tijori, Upasana Singh, Manjari Fadnnis , Veer Rajwant Singh, Manu Rishi Chaddha, Akashdeep Arora, Sarika Singh, Sukhpal Singh and Nikhil Nair. While the show is garnering rave reviews from the audience, in an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, Gurmmet shared how Boman Irani came on board for Masoom, Mirzapur memes dominating social media and other interesting things. Excerpts from the interview: After the grand success of shows like Inside Edge and Mirzapur, you have become one of the sought-after filmmakers and obviously, now people have a lot of expectations from the projects which are attached with your names. So does that make you nervous or give you a sense of responsibility? First of all, I’d like to thank you for all this praise. It definitely feels good to know you feel that way.  See definitely, I think we wear this with a lot of pride that at least people have enjoyed our past work, but while making any project, like while making Mirzapur, we had no idea that was going to become such a big hit or the fans would really enjoy it so much. Similarly while making anything new or getting into a new show or a new film, we try and not think too far ahead. So try and keep everything simple. Start with the basics of let’s first enjoy the content then get into the casting, get into the making, enjoy that process as much as we can. And we hope that the experience that we’ve had before, maybe the success that we’ve had before, that gives us the confidence. It gives us the vision to be able to then translate it into every project that keeps coming henceforward. And we are also very mindful that every project will have its own destiny. So we try and keep in mind that jo journey hai while making the show that has to be our most enjoyable phase. And then whatever happens later, the response, the feedback, good, bad, we are all ready for it. And we would really like to continue giving success after success, but that’s not in our hands. We can only attempt to do it. The rest is all with the public and how they receive the show. Why you choose Blood (original show) for the Indian adaptation?  I think the really good part about the original also were the strong family ties that it had within the show. I think the inter-family relationships were very interesting the way they were portrayed, the lens that they were viewed from. So, it felt like a very nice challenge and for us to sort of bring that story and make it our own and set it in a place that we know so well or in surroundings and a culture that we know well. So it was intriguing and I like the silences.,I like the poetry, I like the mood of the show. And that’s something that we’ve tried to translate onto our version as well. And which is why Mihir also was such an important choice for this show because I think inherently he has such a good command over visuals, his aesthetic sense as far as music as far as just mood is so good. Of course performances are fantastic. So I think that combination really fell in place for us. That’s why we are so excited about the show and that’s hopefully that’s what is translating to people when they’re watching the trailer as well. Mihir had said that he didn’t watch the original show. So what came to him was a script So, but obvious you have watched the original show. So when you were on the set and he was shooting some sequence or scene, did you find any kind of similarity if you’ll compare? So again, I think the beauty about this process is that once we had moved on from the thoughts that we are adapting an original format or on original show, then I guess you start to own it and start making it your own. So you bring your own personality into it. Set here. Satyam Tripathi, the writer beautifully pen it down onto paper. We sat, we worked on it, we also brainstorm of how we can best bring that visual poetry onto the page. So we worked hard at it and because we’ve spent almost a year and a half on our version of the show, I don’t think any of us that have worked on the show are even blindly, even going back to even an idea of what original thing was. And as Mihir said, it was a great decision from his part, not indulging what had happened or what the earlier thing was. He wanted to bring his own vision into the show. And we supported him completely on that accord. Once on paper, once it was being shot, once in the edit, we all treated it as an individual entity of its own. Whether it’s working, whether it’s not working, what can we improve? How are the emotions coming through? Everything was as if we were starting things from scratch. Kyonki mazaa usi mein hai. Our point was not to get a show made, the point was to get a show that we are really proud of to come on to stream. Since the show has phenomenal ensemble, so was casting a difficult process?  So every show, the cast actually is the spine of it. Once your writing is in place, which is the bedrock. The writing is the most important, then comes the casting and they are going to bring alive the characters that we have sort of imagined on paper. It’s an extensive process and we try and spend a lot of time in casting and be very particular about, whom we want to go with, what we want to get from which actor and the good part is I think Mihir and me enjoy the process in the same way. We are not set in our heads with who you want to cast when we are writing. But once the material is there and we have the characters completely written out and sketched out, then we start meeting people, talking to people and again their physicalities, their look is not something that we are tied down to. We approach actors, who can bring personas written on paper and for all of these actors, they each have an individual story of as to how they came on board and the most interesting one is of course Boman’s. So, I have had an association with Boman from a long time and the first time I’d worked with him was in 2006. And since then, and once I started directing on my own, I have approached him several times with various scripts, for various shows or various films. And he is a gentleman, everyone knows it and he’s a great host. So used to meet us, used to sit down, used to have a great conversation, used to feed us very good Parsi food but he used to always say no to the part and send us back. Finally, when this show came around and we were discussing possible actors and Mihir and our producer Namit, when they suggested if we should go to Burman for this role, I was like, that would be great. But you know, I have never been able to get him to say yes or to crack him, but we say, I said, why not we can definitely try, but I wasn’t very hopeful. So we sent him the script and with that same evening, he called back and he said sunte hai I want to hear this one. So I’m like, wow! This is the first time I’ve got some sort of a positive response from Boman. So that was a big vote of confidence. And then he finally heard the script, he really liked it. Even, he felt it was a very strong show on paper. It captures a lot of mood and direction that he feels is very important in the show, it’s not very verbose. Its got layers, its got a depth, so he really liked it when he read it. And finally he said yes.

So, it’s been an interesting journey and similarly for the other actors as well. And, we’ve always been very lucky with the shows that we’ve done, that the actors that have come on board have been hungry. When they’ve gotten the scripts or whether they’ve auditioned or tested, they’ve all come on board to the shows, wanting to perform, wanting to be there, wanting to do something good. So we actually have never had to sort of motivate them or try and convince them to come on to a show. I think, which has also been a positive and same here with Masoom with  the whole ensemble with Upasnaji, with Manjiri, with Samara, Veer, Aakashdeep, Manu Rishi our favorite, Jobanpreet. So they all bring so much to their characters, to their show that you know, we’ve had a good time again, making the show with them. Till today, the memes on Mirzapur are ruling social media and it is definitely amazing. So, when you come across any meme of you show, how does it feel? I mean like you even, we are amazed kyuki before this culture had come on board for shows. I don’t think these kind of talking points or memes or gifs were available. So, this is something that like we are in the first generation of seeing something like this. So, and there’s been no precedence toh humlog toh find ourselves very lucky. Okay, Hum is time pe the and people appreciated the show. It has penetrated pop culture logo ko usmein revelence dikh rahi hai to we only consider ourselves fortunate and to be there in this initial stage and every day we just thank our stars kay we are getting so much love. When we can get some big update on your film Phone Bhoot? So, currently I’m not at the liberty to let you know, but of course there’s an announcement coming soon. We are building up towards it. Again, it’s a marquee film, it’s a spectacle for the audience and theater going people. So we are in the process of almost completing it. So, Excel Entertainment will very soon be putting out an announcement to what’s the next update with it. If I could, I would’ve definitely given you an update, but I’m not at the liberty to give it. You started your career as an assistant director followed by making some great web shows and now you are making a big Bollywood film. So, how you sum up your journey from the initial days to the present moment? Actually never thought so far back or down the line, just taking every day as it comes. It’s been fun, I’ve actually been one of really fortunate people that I’ve in this almost 22-23 year long career, I’ve been lucky enough to constantly be working. I think that has just been important and you keep working and you keep moving from one step to the other. I focus currently on the present, again, not try and focus too much on the outcome, too much on what the results are going to be. Kyonki results can go either ways. So, the important thing, just constantly, we have to remind ourselves this just ke effort has to be complete and try and enjoy the process. Then the rest of it, you are able to handle both things, whether it’s success or whether it’s failure, then you are able to keep a straight mind through it. Read all the  **_Latest News_** _,_  **_Trending News_** _,_  **_Cricket News_** _,_  **_Bollywood News_** _,_  **_India News_**  and  **_Entertainment News_**  here. Follow us on  Facebook_,_  Twitter and  Instagram_._