Writer-director Anurag Kashyap (Paanch) is surprised with media reports that he is in Delhi shooting for producer Tutu Sharma's latest venture AK: Alwyn Kallicharan.
"Where did you read this? Who has written the piece?" he asks, sounding amused. "I am in Chennai working on director Mani Ratnam's movie. I have been here with this team for quite some time now.
"I am writing the screenplay and dialogues for the film, and will be with the team till the shooting is over," he says.
Ratnam's film is a Hindi-Tamil bilingual, with Kashyap writing the Hindi version. Since Ratnam is not conversant in Hindi, he prefers having his scriptwriters on the sets.
The Hindi version stars Ajay Devgan, Vivek Oberoi, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Simran and Raghubir Yadav. The film's indoor portions are being shot in Chennai and the outdoor portions in Kolkata.
"We have completed shooting for almost half the film. I think we are looking at a year-end release," says Kashyap.
Does this mean AK: Alwyn Kallicharan has been shelved? "Of course not! It's just that we are all busy with other projects now. As and when everything is worked out, we will begin the film."
AK: Alwyn Kallicharan, starring Anil Kapoor as a cop with negative shades, will be a futuristic crime thriller.
Kashyap has also written a 45-minute English play, When God Said Cheers, which he adapted from Geoffrey Scott's Man And God Talking Things Over A Pint Of Beer.
This two-actor play has Kashyap playing God opposite Cyrus Dastur's man. The play, shows of which were held in some Mumbai restaurants in June, received good reviews in the local press, with some even appreciating his 'natural' performance.
"I'm not the type who can act in a play in Mumbai one day, write the screenplay and dialogues for a reputed filmmaker in Chennai the next and direct my own film in Delhi on the third. How can a person do three different things in three different cities simultaneously?" he says, laughing.
He is quick to add he is looking forward to begin work on AK: Alwyn Kallicharan and hopes his directorial debut Paanch (Kay Kay, Tejaswani Kolhapure, Aditya Srivastava, Joy Fernandes and Vijay Maurya), which has been awaiting release for almost two years now, will be released soon.
Paanch is a thriller about five aspiring rock singers getting sucked into a world of crime and deceit. The film, produced by Sharma, was earlier stuck with the censors.
Sharma's Khullam Khulla Pyaar Karen (directed by Harmesh Malhotra, starring Govinda, Preity Zinta), another long delayed film, is scheduled to release this month.
