He loves The Godfather, Sholay, Cinema Paradiso and Gladiator. He can watch them again and again.

He doesn't want to turn invisible but as a kid he craved for the watch Anil Kapoor wore in Mr India to do the disappearing act.

He doesn't like talking about himself. Why? Because there is nothing interesting about it.

Call him arrogant or media shy, Prawaal Raman doesn't give a damn. The Darna Mana Hai director is more interested in knowing what the audience's reaction to his second film, Gayab, will be.

Discover more about this Ram Gopal Varma discovery in this conversation with Senior Correspondent Sukanya Verma.

Only for a short span, because the character's name is Vishnu Prasad. [Otherwise] It was always called Gayab.

It came to Ramuji keeping in mind the [one of the] stories of Darna Mana Hai -- the Stop episode featuring Aftab Shivdasani. Suresh Nair of Bombay Times (The Times of India supplement) developed that particular story, which Ramuji gave to me. [Another writer] Kona Venkat, Suresh and I developed Gayab.

Not at all. The very fact that it deals with the hero being invisible, there would be buzz about it being inspired from Mr India to 10 other films which deal with invisibility of a hero. But this story line is totally different.

He suited the character very well, which is a very clichéd answer. Secondly, his face carries the darkness and the pathos of a man who carries a past behind which is troubled. There is some sadness about his face, which I compare with Guru Dutt.

Not at all. The story is just not about a loser. The character just begins as a loser. But it's a very challenging role. It encompasses the growth of a failure because of the support system he gets in life. And that support system in Gayab happens to be the invisibility factor.

At times, he does. He becomes invisible. After that, he only caters to himself. Any person who caters to himself will become a little selfish no doubt. Once a person is selfish, it's a chain reaction. It will give scope for evil things to do.

Not really. Everything has been treated in a very fun-loving way.

The very fact that he [Vishnu Prasad] is a failure in life, his friends trouble him and people are laughing at him shows that the humour is dark. When a man slips on a banana and bystanders laugh is also dark humour.

The character has suffered a lot since the beginning of the film, so the humour is dark.

Its story line. The invisibility factor, simplicity of narration and lot of special effects.

Same difference. It had six stories one ending. Gayab has one story one ending. [Laughs].

I don't compare the two. Both were challenging. At a given point, whichever film I am doing is most challenging to me, irrespective of how I treated it. The process is very momentary.

For our convenience of filmmaking, definitely, we do believe in God [Laughs]. Also, ghosts. We made Bhoot and Darna Mana Hai.

Not really. We were too involved. It never became like a happy family. We were not madly in love with each other. It was like a normal shooting, very professional. We landed up completing the film the way we had planned.

Including the songs, it took 95 days to complete filming Gayab. It had a lot of special effects also, [so] I had to be extremely well planned.

The inputs were throughout, right from very basic story line to screenplay to dialogues. I seek those inputs. If I don't get them, I won't be cool.

Mr India remains my all-time favourite. That's why while making Gayab, I never even thought of comparing my film to Mr India. It is a classic.

It's not about young or old, it's how well you know your job. It's not like if you're young, people won't listen to you. I have never had any problems.

Life is very exciting. I do what I want to. I make films. I am not a sad man with a story behind myself. I don't like talking about myself because I don't find anything interesting for me or anybody else.

I decide for others. I shoot a film deciding for others [Laughs]. I like reading about people who talk about how they made it. But I can't romanticise the entire thing.

It's a conscious decision that I don't want to talk about myself. You can call it media shy, arrogance, (an) attitude problem or a way of remaining mysterious.