Boman Irani made his directorial debut with The Mehta Boys. He is most renowned for his iconic roles in movies like 3 Idiots, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Munna Bhai MBBS, Lage raho Munna Bhai, and Jolly LLB, among others. Kayoze Irani, 37, made his directorial debut a few months later with Sarzameen, which debuted on Jio Hotstar on July 25. Sarzameen is brash and political, whereas The Mehta Boys is sentimental and close-knit. Despite their divergent paths, both storytellers exhibit a personal quality that is evidently driven by the same desire.
Kayoze Irani’s Sarzameen stars Prithviraj Sukumaran, Kajol, and Ibrahim Ali Khan. The movie is set in Kashmir and explores themes of sacrifice, patriotism, and the lingering impacts of conflict. He is reuniting with Karan Johar Dharma Productions, the same production house that gave him his acting debut in Student of the Year in 2012. Irani played the role of Kaizaad ‘Sudo’ Sodabottleopenerwala in the movie starring Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra.
Kayoze Irani On His Directorial Debut
Kayoze Irani talked about his journey, difficulties he encountered while donning the director’s hat and even opened up about reuniting with Karan Johar in an exclusive interview with The Daily Jagran.
Kayoze Irani revealed he always knew that he wanted to be filmmaker even while he started as an actor in the industry. He said, “I was in school and my parents took me to watch a movie, called Jurassic Park and after watching that movie I wanted to know is this man who made this film. At that point, I did not know his name was Steven Spielberg. And I said whoever this man is, I want to be this man. And since then my absolute destination has to be a filmmaker.”
“Every step I’ve taken towards the idea of being a director and it’s all I’ve wanted to be and I am so grateful that finally I can do that,” he shared.
Actor turned filmmaker Kayoze Irani opened up about his debut (Image: Instagram)
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Kayoze Irani Reflects On Challenges In Sarzameen
Talking about the difficulties as a first-time director, Kayoze Irani said, “When you’re in the director’s chair, things go wrong all the time on the set.”
The actor-turned-director disclosed that the crew had severe weather-related problems while filming Sarzameen, including an earthquake one day and an avalanche the other day. He further revealed that their camera didn’t operate on the first day of shoot. “How do I cut the noise because your audience has no clue of what is happening. They don’t know whether this one minute scene took one hour to shoot or 10 days to shoot.”
As a new director, Kayoze also brought attention to the problem of how to determine which takes work. “How do you if take three was better or was take this expression was better. What I realized on set sitting on set, I felt, sitting in the director’s chair was always the takes that work because as a director you have to live the scene with them. You have to live that emotion. You have to be the fourth wall in that room,” he prompted.
Kayoze Irani shared the challenged he encountered while filming Sarzameen (Image: Instagram)
Kayoze Irani And Karan Johar’s Reunion
Additionally, Kayoze Irani discussed his reunion with Karan Johar and his clarity in vision while making Student of the Year. He recalled, “When we were shooting Student Of The Year, Karan sir was very clear with his vision that when we would come on to set, he’d sit us down, he’d tell us what he wanted and we would deliver that.”
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Reflecting on his experience as a filmmaker with the veteran actors Kajol and Prithvi, he said, “When it came to Kajol ma’am and Prithvi sir, we had planned and done the homework on this film so much that they knew exactly what I wanted. We had discussed where we wanted to take it. So the takes we were doing were just trying to improve upon what we were trying to get.”