Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani has finally confessed that he changed his Sanjay Dutt biopic Sanju to create sympathy for his protagonist. The Ranbir Kapoor starrer film earned lots of accolades and acclaim for Ranbir’s performance and minted money at the box office. However, now the filmmaker revealed that he shot additional portions of the film to create empathy because people hated him in the test screenings. Hirani said that he made the film as the actor’s story but it was not liked by people.
During a media interaction with an acclaimed writer at Indian Film and TV Directors Association’s (IFTDA), Hirani said, “During the shoot, I felt ‘What am I doing, I’m going wrong.’ In fact, when the first edit was ready and we screened for people, they hated him. They said we don’t like this man, we don’t want to watch him,” he said. “Because I wanted to do a true story, I didn’t create any empathy towards him. I said let’s not create empathy and show (him) as he is. But later I understood that he is our hero, we need some empathy for him.”
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Hirani further said, “The scene where he tries to kill himself after the verdict is out; which he had mentioned to me but we didn’t put in the film, I shot it later. It was not in the original script. I thought through this some empathy will come... The initial test reactions were like ‘naah we don’t like this guy...’ Every film is a journey. Some things work and some don’t. I still see flaws in the film but you try your best and hope your best is good enough.”
The director further revealed that he added a certain scene in the film to create empathy for its lead character, which was not there earlier. Hirani said Sanjay’s story was so huge that anyone could have made a standalone film with only one event. He also commented that Anurag Kashyap could have made a great Sanju. Speaking about the film, Hirani said, “Everyone views the story through their own perspective. Someone would’ve made Sanju only on the chapter of how he acquired the gun, destroyed it, and then the case. It could have been a film of its own. But I thought everyone knew this. The father-son equation interested me more. I was blown away by ‘Black Friday’. If Anurag would have heard the story, he may have been attracted to the gun angle and would have made that story. He would have made a great film with that.”
The film received a lot of criticism as well, especially because critics and audience felt that Sanju whitewashes Sanjay’s image. However, Hirani defended himself and said that he believes the actor is flawed but harmless. Defending his film, he said, “He goes and sleeps with his best friend’s girlfriend but there isn’t any reason. Their friendship was almost jeopardised... The other scene where he puts the commode seat on a girl he wants to marry, I am not defending that! It’s a terrible action. My perception of Sanju was that he has done so many weird things but he is not a bad man... I felt he had innocence, he is naughty but he doesn’t harm anyone. He didn’t pick up the gun, scared people or fired a shot. He made a mistake.”
However, funnily enough, Hirani still maintained that he did not attempt at ‘whitewashing’ Sanjay’s character and questioned his belief that he showed Sanjay’s crimes as it is and even went ahead to showcase his jail term without adding frills to the plot.
