“You can’t make an Aamir Khan film for two crores” – Dia Mirza

Read More">Have you as a producer found the right balance? Saif and his Illuminati are doing it really well. Even Excel Entertainment and Dharma are doing it. That’s how one should produce movies. Making movies they want to make. Sushmita Sen said something very interesting to me the other day – As creative people there willRead More

Have you as a producer found the right balance?
Saif and his Illuminati are doing it really well. Even Excel Entertainment and Dharma are doing it. That's how one should produce movies. Making movies they want to make. Sushmita Sen said something very interesting to me the other day - As creative people there will always be certain desires that a producer in you will never be able to meet. Saif and Farhan have been able to do it very well. Karan's father was one of the best producers of our country. He still comes from a producer's background. All these people's objective is cinema and meeting audiences desires. For us it is - what do we love, what do we want to do? That sometimes is a little bit indulgent. We need to find that balance which I'm sure we will in time to come.

The scariest thing any producer has to face is the budget. Do you agree?
No investment is risk free. The truth is, if you cast Aamir Khan, you can't make an Aamir Khan film for two crores. You can but you won't. The difference lies there. Same with a Shah Rukh Khan film. You know what I mean? But there a multiple other things that ascertain the budget of the film. The first thing that decided that is the story, the scale of it. You can size it down but then it shows. There are times we can be foolish and indulgent and spend too much money on a film that doesn't need that kind of budget. But when I look at Paan Singh Tomar, I wish Tigmanshu had a little bit of money backing. It's such a wonderful story that could've been mounted so well. Having said that, it still works because a good story is a good story. You can't take that away.

How does it work between the three of you - What if Zayed and Sahil like a story and you don't?
(Laughs) When the story is good, there is a basic intuition that everybody will have. When you see a good movie it's not bizarre that hundred people get up and say - wow! That's the magic of cinema. That's what a good story does to you. Sometimes, Zayed gets really excited by an idea. What Sahil and I do is see if the idea goes beyond the concept. Will it translate into a great story is the question we ask. Zayed has wonderful ideas and it's an asset to have him. We also have each other to keep us in check (laughs). All three of us are tuned in and work a lot of gut too. Both men trust me (laughs). Women are always right, aren't they? (Laughs).

Watch this space for Part 2 of Dia Mirza special!

When you say a wider audience, your first film did just that. True! My first film Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein is perceived by the media and audiences to be a super hit. When my fans meet me, they always talk about that film. In their minds, Read More">it’s a hit. But the fact is thatRead More

When you say a wider audience, your first film did just that.
True! My first film Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein is perceived by the media and audiences to be a super hit. When my fans meet me, they always talk about that film. In their minds, it's a hit. But the fact is that at the box office, it was a dud - a disaster. The film has gone on to gain a sort of cult status. The music is still heard and people who were ten and fourteen then still listen to the music now. It's one of the highly viewed movies on televsion. The TRP's are high. There are many good films that don't do well at the box office.

And Born Free wants to strike gold someday at the box office, isn't it?
It's all about perspective and how you set out to do it. When Born Free was put together, it was put together with the thought that we want to have creative freedom and make what we believe in. We want to go out there and put our stories into the world and we want to do it a certain way. The triumph for us is that we did just that in our first film. There are so many who keep struggling to make a film that they want to because of certain pressures. Yes, we didn't strike gold at the box office but maybe we want for the next ten. But will we be embarrassed with the films we make? Never!

What now? Any announcements?
We at Born Free have invested our last six months in scouting, reading, reading, reading, meeting, meeting, meeting. You have no idea how many script writers we've met. We have zeroed in on about eight ideas we love. We want to go forward with a few of these ideas. We are working with multiple writers every day, developing scripts with them. So when we get into the pre-production and are about to release it, we are ready to pre-prod our next film. We will always be a boutique enterprise. Zayed is extremely ambitious. I am a little simple and Sahil is the balancer. The goal is to be able to keep making movies the way we want to. We keep looking at the method in the madness but it doesn't work out here in India. It takes trials, errors and understanding your methods. There are multiple studios who want to do a tie-up with us but first we need to put the most important thing together before committing on anything else, and that is the story.

Frantically busy, fluently posh, Dia Mirza has never been in more demand ever since she has started her production house – Born Free, along with partners Sahil Sangha and Zayed Khan. Between the Presidential choices, the Satyamev Jayate debates, Read More">public transport strikes and increased fares there is a palpable cheer inside the Born Free sphereRead More

Frantically busy, fluently posh, Dia Mirza has never been in more demand ever since she has started her production house - Born Free, along with partners Sahil Sangha and Zayed Khan. Between the Presidential choices, the Satyamev Jayate debates, public transport strikes and increased fares there is a palpable cheer inside the Born Free sphere of influence because there is one beautiful lady who walks in with a smile in green top, no make up and denims. I love Dia Mirza. Her image is omnipresent. I thought I'd become inured to her looks by now, but no, even when she is the most lazily dressed, she looks unsullied. Then comes her unprepared poshness. Whenever she talks, she uses the loud and clear and confident tones of those in possession of a healthy sense of entitlement. At present we are surrounded by a plate of freshly cut apples and my favorite cold coffee from Costa that Mirza promised me she'll get. She's a lady who keeps her word. Impressed! At that point, it's just me and her in her fortress of films where the actor and producer is completely consumed by work and the tiresome trials of a celebrity. I look around and spot what my eyes were searching for. Much like her beautiful butterflies that adorn the walls in her personal cabin and the waiting area, I figure out that Dia is in her bliss business - light and colourful and spreading happiness in abundance, be it the man in her life or her love for movies. In this Part 1 exclusive, I discover the producer behind the actress called Dia Mirza.

So, let's recap and talk about Love BreakUps Zindagi. Any regrets?
Collectively, from all the different sources, everybody watched the film from the industry and recognised one fact, we at Born Free knew how to make a film. We packaged it well and did everything what we were meant to do. I think luck plays a very important role along with marketing and distribution. If we got ten things right, we did get a few things wrong too in our first film. The aim is always to make a good film. I can say this with utmost pride and honesty that even when I look back at Love BreakUps Zindagi thirty years from now, I will feel proud. When you set out to do anything in life, the idea is to entertain people. Even if I get thirty tweets in a day from those who have got the DVDs of the film and have loved watching it again and again, for me, that is satisfaction. It's wonderful. But when you make a film you want a wider audience.