Vivek Agnihotri and Anurag Kashyap have been at a war of words recently with both of them making strong statements about each other. Earlier, Vivek had called Anurag an “alcoholic” to which Anurag responded and said that The Kashmir Files director was a “liar”. The two had briefly collaborated on Vivek’s sports-drama film, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal (2007), after which they had a professional fallout.
In a recent interview with Siddharth Kannan, Vivek was asked about his comments and he maintained that his film suffered due to Anurag’s alcoholism. “Forget him. What he says at night and what he says in the morning are completely different. When someone has two or three people living inside him, what can I even say about what he says,” Vivek said, before going on to praise the Gangs of Wasseypur director. “Yes, I had talked about his drinking habits, and that’s the truth. But I never said Anurag is a bad guy — he is a wonderful guy. His contribution to Indian cinema is unprecedented. There can be only one Anurag Kashyap. When Indian cinema's history is written, people will remember him,” Vivek said.
He added, “But my film suffered because of his alcoholism. What's wrong with that? I used to drink a lot during a time period in my life, and suffered at work because of it. It happens. I stand by my point that he gave his work to Vikramaditya Motwane. You can ask the company that hired them.”
The film’s dialogues are credited to Anurag while Vikramaditya wrote the screenplay. It starred John Abraham, Boman Irani, Arshad Warsi and Bipasha Basu in pivotal roles.
Speaking about Vivek’s comments earlier, Anurag said, “He didn’t want the script by Motwane or me. He wanted to make Lagaan of football and took his own writer to write that crappy script. Neither me nor Motwane went on the set ever.”
Vikramaditya shared that the film got made, but not in the way he or Anurag wanted. “At that time, it was like beggars can’t be choosers, you got paid for work. I still believe the original script of mine is one of the best things I have written.”
Meanwhile, on the work front, both Anurag and Vivek have films releasing in September. Anurag’s upcoming film, Nishaanchi, is a dark comedy which is set to be released in theatres on September 19 while Vivek’s The Bengal Files will be released on September 5.
