It was after my film Ghulam released in June 1998 that I was
shooting a television series for Pooja (Bhatt) called “Dhund”. We were almost
wrapping the series shooting long hours at a bungalow on Pali Hill in the
suburbs of Mumbai when Mukeshji (Mukesh Bhatt) got off the car with two young
boys. He walked up to me with them in tow and said, ‘These are my nephews Mohit
(Suri) and Emi (Emraan Hashmi). They want to assist you.” Never to say no to
anyone who wanted to learn I asked them to hop on to the filmmaking bandwagon.
As the days went by I could see that Mohit worked hard and
Emraan did not work at all. He took every excuse possible to escape the
drudgery that came with being an assistant director. ‘This guy is never going
to be a director”, I said to myself. The schedule ended and they disappeared.
I started filming Kasoor a fortnight after that and the boys
were back on the set with me. I saw very little of Emraan but I am not the one
to enforce any kind of attendance on my assistants so I did not really pester
Emi and doggedly chase him down. I let him be. Soon he stopped coming.
We were shooting at Filmistan studios and I saw Emraan
again. He had come to meet Bhattsaab, (Mahesh Bhatt). There is this huge make
up room in Filmistan simply called Room number one and Bhattsaab generally read
there while I shot. I went in to consult with him on a scene and I found Emraan
sitting with him and having a very serious chat. As I entered the room
Bhattsaab in his quintessential style shouted, “Hey, this guy wants to be a
Hero. What do you think?” I remember mumbling some half baked “that is
good kind of response” and getting out of the room as quickly as I entered. I
also remember telling myself that if this chap pursued acting with the same
passion that he pursued direction then God help him.
It was not going to be an easy ride for him. Well to be
honest nothing is easy if Bhattsaab is involved.
Emraan’s first job as an actor was to be with Bhattsaab at
all times. And believe me when I say that it is very difficult to do that. Raaz
and the Ooty schedule, Emraan was there with Bhattsaab. He had to share the
room with Bhattsaab which actually meant sleeping in the lounge of the suite on
an uncomfortable couch and being woken up at odd hours by a man who sleeps very
little. The poor chap was between dreams and a nightmare. He was being put
through the fire for sure.
Finally the day came. Emraan was being launched and the film
was Footpath. The location Mukesh Mills and his second shot was his first
dialogue ever, “headlight off kar warna battery down ho jayegi toh Dhaka marne
wala koi nahi milega”
First take, second, third…tenth…fifteenth. Bhattsaab sat in
his car and left the set. It was looking like a bad decision. Emraan’s
grandmother, a yesteryear actor and someone who was really happy to see Emraan
take after her was there to see his shot, she was mortified. Take thirty and
everyone was gone and so had Emraan’s spirit. He was a bundle of nerves. There
was no point going on.
Mukeshji called me early the next day and asked me if I
thought Emraan was going to deliver. Something told me that he would. That
evening he did. He rocked the scene. A star was born.
Footpath did not do well though Emraan got a lot of praise
for his performance in the film. Soon after Footpath I had some differences
with Vishesh Films and I left the company. I did not work with Emraan for the
next ten years. Though from afar I saw Emraan grow from strength to strength.
From Murder to Gangster and Raaz 2 and then Jannat, he was belting the films
out and the boy I knew to play hookie at the shoots was now the famous, “Serial
Kisser”.
Relationships that have meant something deep are not just
broken easily and I was back with Bhattsaab and Mukeshji. The film was Raaz 3
and this time the Hero was the star Emraan Hashmi. He was not the Emi I knew. He
was the confident man who had many roles and many hits behind him.
Raaz 3 was not really his film and to be honest he did it
more as a Vishesh Film enterprise and less as a project that excited him. He
never even saw the finished film and I am guessing he felt slighted by the
importance that Bipasha got in the film. I don’t really blame him. He did get
his biggest hit though and Raaz 3 remains the highest grossing Indian horror
film to date.
Mr. X was however going to test his mettle on and off the
screen.
Januray 2014, three days before we were to start the
principal photography of the film I was sitting with Bhattsaab in the office
when he got the call from Emraan. His son Aayan had been diagnosed with Cancer,
a tumor in his kidney. Everything fell apart around him, the least of all his
film schedules. We pulled the set down that was put up for the schedule and
Emraan took his son to Toronto. He got his treatment started and came back a
month later to begin the film.
Filmalya studios and the first schedule of Mr X, we were
filming the scene in which Emraan goes invisible in the film. He was screaming
for the shot and he was screaming cause of the pain that he was supposed to
portray but I saw through the 3D monitors the pain of the father who had just
left his soon back in Toronto on a treatment that he hoped would save his life.
I saw that day that only Emraan could be Mr X because he was Mr X in real life.
He could take the pain and move on. He was the epitomy of bravery.
Through the making of the film he kept going back to
Toronto. Aayan was getting better slowly and we discovered much to our joy that
he was going to beat the cancer but as if the illness of his son was not enough
Emraan had to face one box office reversal after another. His films missed the
mark at the box office. Through it all I saw him hold it together. I saw him
swing from ropes and say the Mr X dialogues and do the cool stuff in the face
all adversity. He gave everything he had to the film.
Regardless of the fate of the film Emraan Hashmi stands tall
in my eyes today. When I think back at Bhattsaab
saying, “Hey this guy wants to be a Hero” I want to say today, “He is a Hero
Sir, He is a real Hero.”
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