Ram Gopal Varma recently opened up in an interview that Amitabh Bachchan never asked him why he is remaking Sholay as he had a certain trust in the director. RGV confessed that he was just making a gimmicky version of the 1975 blockbuster when he made Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag in 2007.
In a conversation with Galatta Plus, RGV said, “When I was making RGV Ki Aag, if someone had asked me, ‘Will it be as good as Satya?’ I was just trying to do a gimmicky version of Sholay. If someone had seriously asked me that question, I’m not sure I would have been able to answer.”
He added, “That was his trust in me. He didn’t ask why. Them not questioning me was okay because I had a certain credibility as a director after making so many films. They must have assumed I knew what I was doing. I don’t think it was their place to ask, and at that time, they didn’t know how Aag would shape up. Amitabh would have thought I was making an interpretation of Sholay.”
He also recounted a conversation he had with filmmaker SS Rajamouli, where he questioned RGV’s choices. “Whatever you make, it has to come from within you with sincerity, and I did not do that. I wasn’t even aware that I wasn’t doing it. I’m a very careless person, and I have a tendency not to take myself seriously. I also tend to become gimmicky or say and do things for shock value,” RGV said talking about the interaction.
He added, “In this context, SS Rajamouli asked me, ‘A person as intelligent and well-read as you, why would you do this?’ I told him, ‘I am not a filmmaker, but I also make films. I live my life on my own terms, and in that context, something like this will come.'”
RGV recently went in a reflective mode as he said that he regrets making films for ‘shock value and gimmick effect’ after Satya. He had promised himself of making films that have more honesty and sincerity moving on. He announced that his next film is titled Syndicate and that it will wash away all his ‘cinema sins’.