A bespectacled Tabu in a doorway. Rajpal Yadav washing clothes. The bumbling trio of Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty on haunches, behind a tree, wearing helmets. Akshaye Khanna losing his cool. If you came of age in North India in the 2000s, these silly images are likely burned in your brain. They all flowed from the same source: the delirious, teeming mind of Priyadarshan.
Like a food fad or a musical trend, Priyadarshan's films are synonymous with a point in time. His comedies (both in Hindi and Malayalam) loom large over a diverse, decades-spanning filmography. His latest film, Bhooth Bangla, a horror-comedy, is positioned as a return to his signature brand of convivial chaos. The film reunites him with Akshay Kumar, on their seventh outing together, as well as Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Manoj Joshi and the late Asrani. It's Priyadarshan's 98th film as director, and while he's gestured at retiring at 100, he wants to keep hitting into the final overs.
"Alfred Hitchcock, when told that his films had only craft and and no art, would quip that the draft (money) keeps coming. My intention has always been clear - to entertain people," Priyadarshan tells THR India.
Excepts from a conversation...
After 'Khatta Meetha', you and Akshay didn’t work together for 16 years. He continued to do comedies, but not as consistently as in the 2000s.
After Khatta Meetha, I was doing more films in the South. I was working in four languages—Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. In between, Akshay and I would meet and we used to discuss some scripts, and Akshay told me about some scripts as well, but I never found anything exciting and neither did he. When Ekta (Kapoor) brought the script of Bhooth Bangla and asked me to do the film, I found the plot interesting, so we developed it. And Akshay also liked it, and that's how we got back together.
The trailer has several throwbacks to Bhool Bhulaiyaa. What is different between the two films?
Bhool Bhulaiyaa, based on Manichitrathazhu, was a psychological thriller. The horror part in that film was psychological. Here, the horror is literal. Here we have explored quantum physics and black magic. A lot of people in India believe in ghosts and black magic. So, we have made a fantasy film, with a little bit of scientific support, like teletransportation. We have explored the idea of one soul getting into another soul. And a little bit of folklore. There is a backstory about why the ghost in the film went away, and why he's coming back today.
In your heyday, comedies were just comedies. You did not have to punch it with another genre, like action or horror.
Actually, I did do that from time to time. Making people cry, or bring terror into their mind, or tension, these things are easily created in a cinema hall. But making people genuinely laugh is difficult. When you make a full-length comedy — and this is my experience from the South and also in Bollywood — nobody appreciates you. People laugh but the critics call it stupid, they ask what else is there in the film? So, slowly in the South when I was making films I thought if I mix it with the love story, mix it with thriller, so then there is some respect as a director.
Surely you never waited on critical acclaim to make your films?
I didn’t. But if you compare my movies to something like Mrs. Doubtfire, which we adapted in India as Chachi 420, those kinds of films are given their due respect. That’s not the case in India. Even a comic filmmaker goes through this hell. For me, crossing 98 films in the last 42 years, I ignore this kind of criticism because I have heard it so many times. Even a film which is criticized very badly can become a huge name after one year. A lot of water has flown under my feet, so I don't care about these things.
Akshay did some of his best work in your movies. What makes him so skilled at comedy?
Akshay has a typical body language which can make people laugh when it comes to a funny sequence. Think of the road-roller sequence in Khatta Meetha, for instance. Another quality that makes him funny is that he knows the world. He was not born with a silver spoon. He has seen hardhsip. When you look at the younger generation of actors, they all come from comfort. You can tell they have never walked on the street. They have not observed ordinary life in ordinary circumstances, where the best comedy happens. Akshay has that sense.
Do you feel the same way about Mohanlal?
Absolutely. Mohanlal’s filmography has so many great comedies. While being a major star, he is better than most of the comedians when it comes to humorous scenes. Both these guys have that quality of living life and seeing the world. I can understand why it’s tough to find another actor for a role that Mohanlal has done. You have to really think, who can do that? When it comes to these kinds of films, I know only Akshay can do it.
Since most of your Hindi films were remade from Malayalam, I wonder how you translated the comic scenes to a Northern context…
When it comes to humour, we changed things around a lot. For instance, in Hera Pheri, the cycle race is not in the original film. It was added. There is another scene where Tabu comes, and Paresh Rawal’s dhoti falls while the three lead characters are fighting. In Malayalam, we call it ‘Mund’ which also means speak. So I told Neeraj (Vora), I need this punch but in Hindi. He then suggested playing with the word ‘uthaale’, which can refer to both the dhoti and the woman.
There is another example from Malamaal Weekly where Paresh Rawal comes from the census and asks a lady, are you married? She says no and then he mechanically asks, how many children do you have? The same thing is then reversed. That one scene is originally a joke in Malayalam, not even a film. So I adapted it.
Sometimes we added extra characters, but within a limit because the soul should not go. What happens in many remakes is that they look exactly like a South Indian film. But I have never done it. I've always done it in a way that it looks like a Hindi film, because you have to adapt to the culture, you have to adapt the look of the film, the language, the costumes, everything. In Chup Chup Ke, for instance, I changed the setting to Calcutta and since there is a robust Gujarati population in the city, I set the film in that world. The original film, Punjabi House, is about a Malayalam-speaking Punjabi family.
You were also a master of brand placements. There is a great Tide detergent spot in Chup Chup Ke.
There is one more in Hungama—Jeetu from Videocon!