'No big Hindi film star wants to work with me'

I am equally confident. This time, I have included drama too. Hera Pheri and Hungama were out-and-out comedies. Here, I have added some serious scenes too. Normally, in a comedy film, you go home and tell others to watch Hera Pheri for a good laugh. But this time, I have played with emotions also.

Are you worried about releasing your film two weeks away from the big hits, Veer-Zaara and Mughal-e-Azam?

I am scared of my overconfidence. The film should work.

How different is Hulchul from your other comedy films?

If you see Hera Pheri, it was comedy of poverty. Hungama was a comedy of errors. Hulchul is a family comedy. You can call it 'humour around families.'

I have done justice to each character. It is very difficult to make all the actors feel good. There is Jackie Shroff, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Amrish Puri, Akshaye Khanna and Kareena Kapoor. They should not feel 'what am I doing in this film?'

So far, I think everyone is satisfied.

Your film is based on a family, consisting of men, who are not interested in marriage...

Jackie Shroff's character elopes with a girl. In his fury, her father shoots Jackie's mother and in return Jackie's father Amrish Puri kills Jackie's father-in-law. He goes to jail for 20 years.

From that day, Jackie decides never to get married. He thinks that he lost his parents because of that woman. So he does not get married. Neither does the rest of the family.

The family puts a board outside their home, 'Aurat jaat andar aana mana hai' [Women are not allowed inside]. They become brahmacharis. But Paresh Rawal, who is one of them, brakes the rule. He has the most interesting part in the film.

Akshaye and Kareena, who hail from rival families, stage a romance to land others in trouble. But soon, they fall in love, and that's when the trouble starts.

How has been your journey in the Hindi film industry been so far?

I have written 36 films out of the 57 that I've directed. I have done a lot of trial and error and seen how things work in the industry. I have always taken out those tested things and incorporated them in my films.

I have remade a lot of my films that worked in the South in Hindi. For example, Hungama is a remake of my first film Pochakuoru Mukkuthi [Cat With A Nose Ring] that I directed 22 years ago. I have been lucky. I have survived 57 films and that is not a joke. Many people who started their career with me are out of the industry now.

How different are your Hindi remakes from the original films?

Since I write most of my films, I mix two films together sometimes. Ninety percent of South Indian remakes fail because they do not appeal to the audience.

The audiences in the North are different from those in the South. You cannot make a South Indian film look like a South Indian film in Bollywood. I make sure that the original film and the remake are different from each other. For example, Gardish was set in a village in Kerala. I rewrote that film and added Dimple Kapadia and Raj Babbar in the Hindi version. I make these kinds of transformations.

But wasn't the Sanjay Dutt-starrer Hindi film, Munnabhai MBBS, a hit in the South too?

It did reasonably well but it was not a huge hit. The aesthetic values are the same but there is a cultural difference. And that's what you have to bring in your film. You have to see what people, in a region, can identify with in a film.

Paresh Rawal always plays an important comic character in your films.

Paresh Rawal was a villain before he changed tracks with Hera Pheri. I change an actor's image if role demands it. He is a good actor. See what he did in Sardar Vallabbhai Patel.

You are working on a film with Salman Khan.

Yes. It is one of the most touching films. It is a delicate film with some undercurrent humour. I keep changing the colour of humour. Otherwise, I will get fed up!

The film also has Kareena Kapoor. It has not been named as yet.

Will you stick to comedy if Hulchul becomes a hit?

No way! If Virasat did well, I could have stuck to that genre. I did Doli Saja Ke Rakhna after that but it did not work. It took me time to understand where I went wrong.

I thank my dad for giving me a good exposure to comedy since childhood. He was a librarian and I would read a lot of comics. I used to love Laurel and Hardy. I was exposed to good humour. That's why I could make these films.

Why you don't shift base to Mumbai?

I don't want to be here. I cannot work here. I am taking Salman Khan to the South. I have my own studio and my set up there. Moreover, when Bollywood actors are there, they can concentrate more on the sets. In Mumbai, artistes have to meet a lot of people and cannot concentrate on their work.

Any bigger star you want to work with?

No big Hindi film star wants to work with me. They are busy with their own dreams.