His directorial career includes National Award winning film Paan Singh Tomar and Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster and his acting prowess was captured brilliantly in projects like Manjhi - The Mountain Man and Gangs of Wasseypur. Actor-writer-director Tigmanshu Dhulia, who is now playing the role of Shah Rukh Khan's father in Zero, feels that even big budget films need a good script now.

He also emphasised that after 1960s the respect for a content writer went down significantly and that must change now. "Big budget films have started to face this challenge of just being big budget and loaded with stars. But even big budget films need a good script now. Look at ‘Thugs of Hindostan'. The stars delivered what they promised because the first day collections were phenomenal. So people went to see Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan, but from the second day the collections sank," he said.