This is the first time you have worked with AR Rahman. How was that experience? You said somewhere that you had to spend long hours waiting for him in Chennai hotels.
Oh yes. Both of us had some hard times. He told me that until he worked with me, he thought Aamir was the most difficult person to work with but I was worse than Aamir! At the end of the film, he gifted me a perfume called Unforgivable. So I joked to him that he gave me this perfume because he could not find one called 'Unbearable'.
But the truth of the journey is that when you reach the end, you want to go for a journey with that person all over again. So after the film, Rahman told me that he was remaking Tamil film, Boyz, and he wanted me to write the lyrics. That says it all.
Normally, when you work with a music director, you just land up at the studio at the scheduled time. But if you have to go to Chennai -- where you have no friends or family -- it becomes a long wait. So it becomes a little difficult.
How dominating was Mansoor Khan, as a co-producer?
The first thing that Mansoor Khan told me was, 'Abbas, I am not here to direct a film for you. I am here to help you make your film the way you want to.'
He is not interested in making films anymore. All he did was make his experience available to us. He was a fantastic guide, and would not interfere unless we needed something.
There are some shots, which I okayed. But Mansoor would tell me to try it again because we could get a better performance out of the cast.
In some cases, what he did was not visible. For example, there was a scene where Jay breaks down while talking to his mother. I shot the entire scene from their back, as I didn't want to see their expressions. I was very sure how I wanted that scene. But Mansoor asked me to shoot it from all angles for safety sake. In the end, I took the shot that I wanted.
Also Read: The man who made Aamir Khan a star
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