Basil Joseph Said He Wasted Two Years Trying To Make Shaktimaan: Anurag Kashyap 

In a recent interview during his promotions for his film Nishaanchi, director Anurag Kashyap spoke about a brief interaction he had with Malayalam actor and director Basil Joseph about the latter’s experience of getting a Hindi film made. In the interview, Kashyap said that Basil felt he had wasted two years of his career as a director to get Shakitmaan made in Hindi. Basil was touted to make the superhero film in Hindi after he had directed the much-loved superhero comedy Minnal Murali (2021) in Malayalam. 

In this interview with 'Chalchitra Talks', Kashyap spoke about Basil's experience in the Hindi movie industry and the egos he had to balance while trying to get work done. He also praised Basil’s acting in films such as Ponman (2025), calling Basil one of the best ‘common man heroes’ of the Indian film industry. 

Speaking to THR India, Basil had earlier spoken about the exhaustion he had been feeling from directing movies for over four years. He had said, “It’s a bit of frustration … I guess it comes from a sort of guilt,” he adds, searching for the right words. The last time he stood on set as director was more than four years ago, when he made Malayalam cinema’s first superhero movie, Minnal Murali.

The actor has been itching to direct again, coming achingly close to two films since, only for them to be called off for reasons beyond his control. “It’s not that I was slacking or distracted. These films took up so much of my time and effort with so many rewrites. But when it does not materialise after getting close, it sort of gets to you. Films and ideas have a shelf life, and you need to make it within a certain timeframe.”

In the same interview, he added that he had not signed to act in a new film since October. “If I do not make that effort now, the film I want to direct will get delayed even further. I can’t afford that.” This film, he says, requires the dates of a big star, a big budget and lots of time to prepare. “If the film I wanted to make was small, I could have tried to do that along with acting. But because the film is ambitious, I need to give it my complete attention.”