Mohit Suri narrated Saiyaara to Anurag Basu; here's why

Even a filmmaker who has delivered many hits over his 20year career can be anxious and nervous ahead of a filmrsquos release Director Mohit Suri whose Saiyaara hit the screens on July 18 says he feels an enhanced sense of responsibility with the film He reasons ldquoMy actors are new This is my first collaboration with a company Yash Raj Films that is known for their love stories I was always the youngest one on the set when I started out Now I am a grownup shouldering people who bank on merdquoMohit is telling a story of this young musician and this young lyricist who find loveKartik Aaryanrsquos first look in Anurag Basursquos nextYou know like every film it starts with a germ of an idea Here it was memory and music and love being connectedI was that one struggling artist who wanted to make him big no matter what No matter how much of a guard you put up of loving yourself there is someone who gets through the cracks of the world At that time we just came out of COVID and the kind of films that were doing well were this larger than life Action and slapstick comedy and I remember a lot of senior filmmakers told me Why are you wasting your time and money writing this no ones going to make it The script found Aditya Chopra and he bet on it saying Find new faces you cant have 35olds playing these partsSuri is telling a love story of a young musician and a lyricist with the film that launches Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda in Bollywood He remembers producer Aditya Chopra telling him early on that the love story needed new faces How did he end up zeroing in on Panday and Padda ldquoAhaan was doing something with YRF before which didnrsquot work out I met him a couple of times and his audition wasnrsquot working for me I was going to meet him and say no So we went for a last dinner That turned out to be a mad raging night where he was no longer trying to impress me Thatrsquos when I saw the real him and saw the character come alive I told him to stop calling me sir he got into a brozone with me When he stopped pretending to be somebody I found the magic in him For the girl I went through a lot of people and a lot of rejection Some really good options came to me but I wanted a girl who comes from a Punjabi background ndash a city girl with middleclass values It was after four months that I found AneetrdquoAnurag Basu and Mohit SuriIn March midday reported about the similarities between the plots of Saiyaara and filmmaker Anurag Basursquos yetuntitled next with Kartik Aaryan Many renditions of a rockstarrsquos romance March 6 Both films look at how heartbreak influences a musicianrsquos journey Ask Suri about the similarities and he says ldquoIrsquom very close to Dada Basu I have worked as an assistant to him So I met him when he called He has the right to do that I went and narrated this film to him He had started his film and I had finished mine by then He didnrsquot seem worried in the least There was a Rockstar 2011 being made when I was making Aashiqui 2 2013 This is not Interstellar 2014 that we would worry aboutSuri had his own challenges in the film one to live up to his own expectations and secondly to save himself from self censoring He says You know theres a really interesting scene in the film where he gets violent with his own father And I remember while coming in one day I saw Yashjis statue outside I called Mahesh BhattI said theres a scene that Im shooting in the film And this is a really good production house and I might be pushing the envelope too much Maybe my morality is different but the father and son in my film are getting violent with each other in the middle of the road Its emotional for me because I didnt realise my DP profile was a picture of my hand with my sons handAnd he said that I know what your relation with your father was and seeing your DP picture I know where it comes from No matter what you do better I know you wont get this scene morally wrong Dont question yourselfI think the morality of the filmmaker cannot be to be agreeable The audience will always get the honesty of a makerCommerce is a big aspect of a Mohit Suri movie You need to make money for people to keep making films Ive been on the film set since I was 17 and Im 44 todayMore than 5037 of my life Ive spent on set Ive been directing for 20 years I have to keep giving that box office so called successes so that I can keep making films for the rest of my life We ask him what he thinks is broken in the system that films are not making money I think that there needs to be a certain discipline in how much we make a movie The budgets of it The problem is creative people are thinking about economicsAnd economics people are thinking creatively I find at gettogethers people talk either about fashion or business No ones talking about a story When we were young and our seniors got into parties they spoke about art I think now they talk about business and tie ups and profitabilitySo I think we need to bring the art back Money will follow