Pathaan has crossed Rs 700 crore and is still counting. Before the pandemic your film War closed on a lifetime collection of about Rs 500 crore. Bang Bang closed with a business of about Rs 350 crore worldwide. Are you now naturally inclining towards doing more action movies going forward?
Yeah, as of now, what I have on my plate and on my mind is just this genre. I mean, considering I’m making Fighter next, I’m producing Rambo next, right now, it’s only action. I don’t take this too seriously though, if somebody comes up with a story which is anything else, I would love to dabble in it. So I’m not really sticking to this thought, at this brand.

The Hindi film industry had hit a rough patch in 2022, barring few films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Drishyam 2, The Kashmir Files that sent the cash registers ringing. But the response to Pathaan seems to have cemented the belief that the glory days are back…
Honestly, it’s a little surreal. I’ve just been happy to be just a part of the industry and to be able to make films, because I don’t know anything else. And now you’re being credited with so much more, you know, like bringing cinemas back, single screens back, bringing box office back, audiences back… So I really don’t know how to react to all these all these tags. I’m just happy that I have my next job in place. And I can continue making films.

You just mentioned filmmaking is all you know and nothing else. But what would you have been, if not a filmmaker?
There was a point in time, honestly, that I was actually looking at being able to make films to make enough money, to be able to start a restaurant. So I have this very nice idea of opening a small boutique hotel, and running the hotel and that restaurant, somewhere in the world, maybe in India, maybe outside, I don’t know. But I always had this fantasy of doing that. And I’m a big foodie, I love food. I love holidays. I love the beach, so I thought I’d open a small quaint hotel, a 15-20 room hotel and nice restaurant, and I would run it. So I made that into a little dream sequence in Bang Bang where Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif have this kind of a thing that they run in Greece. I tried and saw that dream through them. But you know, at that point, I wanted to do this. Hopefully, I think that that dream is scaled up a little bit. It might be a bigger hotel, but the dream is still there.

Circling back to Pathaan, the film did come with its share of controversies in line with the boycott Bollywood trend that has been around on social media for a while. But when it released, it came out unscathed and with flying colours. It’s as if you checkmated the boycott brigade…
I didn’t say anything, I don’t have to say anything. The audience has said it. The fact that the audiences came in such huge numbers means they knew that there was nothing to what these calls were trying to say. So it was not that they waited and came in the evening to hear about it, like ‘Oh, my god, is this what they’re saying? Is it true what they are trying to say?’ The results came in through advance numbers itself. So I think the audience is too smart. I think we just underestimate the audience’s intelligence. They see through any agenda now. So we didn’t have to say anything or do anything.

More than numbers, it was the emotions of the fans in the theaters that spoke volumes…
Oh, it was crazy! I mean, I keep getting videos of the rejoicing of people, what they’re doing at the end of the film, in the middle of the film, they’re dancing. In that scene where Dimple Kapadia’s character dies, and Shah Rukh Khan’s character gives a salute, I saw a video where the audience unfolded the Indian flag in the theatre. So the fact that they carried a flag into the theatre means what kinds of emotions the film is carrying.

You did go to Gaiety to check out the audience’s response…
I went to Gaiety, got mobbed and I left.

Should have gone incognito like Deepika Padukone then…
That’s not incognito, that’s more like saying, ‘Look I am here!’ (laughs)

Shridhar Raghavan told me the Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan scenes were all you and Aditya Chopra’s joint vision…
I think it’s very Shah Rukh and Salman also. It’s so organic. Also, Adi knows them far better than anyone else. The first thought actually did come from Adi, not even me. So I would call it more Adi’s brainchild than anybody else.

What was most challenging about bringing the two Khans together and how did you tackle creative differences on the sets?
I mean, there was no challenge. Adi just had to make a call. His challenge was only to dial the number. (laughs) But obviously, jokes apart, I think it’s very gracious of Salman to do this in another franchise film. But it’s important that we gave that dignity and respect to him and his character. Also it is Shah Rukh who did a lot to actually make Salman comfortable on his own set. So it was a lot of love that everybody has for each other. That’s why the scene can look like this otherwise, in a situation like this, everybody will be clamoring for attention on screen.

Shridhar also told me that the iconic scarf entry was your idea and not his…
The action, yes, it was completely mine. I mean, it was a lot designed by me in the sense that you want to see the scarf first and then he does this… My action team including Craig Macrae, who’s from South Africa, we brainstormed a lot over the action scenes.

You delivered a blockbuster War before pandemic, and now Pathaan post pandemic. While the conversation still goes on whether the audience’s taste has evolved during the pandemic, you seem to be doing just your thing and winning at it each time…
I think I am just lucky, I would say. The thing is that I haven’t changed as a person or a filmmaker through the pandemic. Obviously, there’s something that you learn, but there’s not much of a shift because I think, by and large, honestly, we’ve been very, very blessed and insulated from what’s happened. All we got was a little time off from work, and we spent time with the family, we watched some content at home, and enjoyed some downtime. So we’ve been very, very blessed, I would say, and very fortunate during that time. I mean, the world is going through a lot, a lot. But we are one of the few people who largely have come out unscathed. We all got COVID, of course, but things were a little mild. God has been very kind is what I would say.

And in terms of filmmaking, I don’t see any change. I am too headstrong as a personality where my work is concerned, my beliefs and convictions are very deep rooted. So I don’t really get shackled with trends and what goes around, what’s fashionable currently. So I think that’s why Pathaan stood out in those times, and War also did. So yeah, you just have to be a little headstrong and hold your convictions.

What would you say about the fan theories that are floating around about Jim’s connection with Kabir in War?
It’s so heartwarming and it shows what deep connects our films have with the audience that they come up with theories that filmmakers haven’t even thought of. It is so validating, it just gives us so much happiness. And honestly, if they’re so creative, I want to call them to my office and ask them to write my stories. (laughs)

What is it that fuels your vision and drives you to do such larger than life stuff, far away from the kind of films you did earlier?
When I made my romantic comedy films also, whether it’s Salaam Namaste or Ta Ra Rum Pum, which had little action in it or Bachna Ae Haseeno, all of them had a certain style, a certain scale to it. So inherently, my romantic comedies also scaled up. Obviously, it also goes with your deep rooted sense of commerce. I like things larger than life. My personality is a little larger than life. I try and do things which have a little more heightened reality in it, even my rom coms. So through an action film, I always try and see how I can break a certain barrier, how I can do some things which are a little unbelievable and yet give it a little logic. So that’s my personality actually. My films stem from there.

What has been your learning about yourself and about your craft over the course of time?
The learnings over each film is what I take back home. There’s some things I learned from Bang Bang, some things I learned from War. Now I’ll take some things from Pathaan, in time, what I have done right or I’ve done wrong. They’re not so deep rooted honestly. I’m really an audience’s director or filmmaker who caters to a large scale audience. When things are going right, I don’t want to take away some learnings and try and spoil the recipe. Happy doing what I’m doing.

There is this conversation going around that with Deepika Padukone’s character Rubai in Pathaan, you’ve finally changed the narrative of a heroine who is not just there to propel the story of the hero forward…
I think that was really organic, because the character that we wrote, it’s someone who actually drives the plot. But that’s when a film actually becomes very wholesome. We have a villain that has a backstory, the girl has a backstory for her motivations. She’s a strong personality, who actually uses the hero, makes him do things that they really want him to do, and then eventually helps him to overcome that also. Sometimes you know, girl’s parts are only there for adding glamour and songs. But if you remove Deepika from Pathaan, there is no Pathaan. So it was not a conscious decision. Deepika delivered a meaty role. The film was written with this character in mind, and fortunately, Deepika agreed to be a part of it.

You have this rare 100 percent track record and none of your films have tanked at the box office. What’s your secret sauce?
Secret boss. (laughs) I wish I can find it. I don’t want to jinx it by saying this!

I have to ask, is Jim coming back in the future?
Everybody wants him to come back and how can we not bring him back! But let’s see when and what happens. Yeah, so let that suspense remain.

“I told them to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland.
“On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible. They decided — without doing damage to anyone on the ground — the best time to do that was as it got over water, outside within the 12-mile limit,” Biden said.
Responding to the downing of the balloon, China expressed strong dissatisfaction and opposition towards the US use of force to attack China’s civilian unmanned airship, state-run Xinhua news agency cited a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying on Sunday.

Watch: US military shoots downs Chinese spy balloon amid heightened tensions