Writer of Masaan and Sacred Games, Varun Grover has recently helmed his first feature film All India Rank, that has received lukewarm response. The film narrates the pain and struggle of a high-school kid, who moves to a different city just to fulfil his father’s wish of becoming an engineer.
In a freewheeling chat with The Free Press Journal, he reveals how he decided to direct. “It was very difficult to process what has happened since I am still hanging with my film, it has been a very stressful time for me. For me, I always wanted to be a writer. I feel, I have reached to some extent where I can continue to write for various filmmakers. I wrote AIR roughly around the time when Masaan was being shot in 2014. However, I kept thinking that who will direct it. I thought I will give to Nitesh Tiwari since he is an ITTian. I was wondering that how will I explain the texture of Lucknow while I was growing up. It took me a while to make me understand that I should direct,” he shares.
“Jaideep Sahani shared my script to Sriram Raghavan since he knew that I was looking for a producer. I know for a fact that Sriram is a rich guy after Andhadhun’s massive success (laughs). He liked the script and called me. But, since I had written it way back so I wanted to write a fresh draft since I didn’t want it to have any similarity to Kota Factory. Although, it was a very personal story set in a different time period,” he adds.
