Sanju not an ad film on Sanjay Dutt: Rajkumar Hirani

A biopic that features involvement of the subject raises questions about objectivity. Rajkumar Hirani’s upcoming directorial venture Sanju is no different as actor Sanjay Dutt, who is a close friend and a frequent collaborator of the director, has been closely attached with the biopic.

From opening up about his life to Rajkumar Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi to umpteen sittings with actor Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt is, perhaps, as invested in the film as the core team.

Naturally, at an interaction with the media after the launch of Sanju teaser, questions about the actor’s life being glorified in the biopic emerged.

Rajkumar Hirani, in his reply, said that he never felt the pressure of the audience’s expectations because his intention was never to “project” Sanjay Dutt in a certain way.

“First of all, there was never a compulsion on us to make this film. No one was telling us that you we have to make this movie. It’s only then that you have this pressure. As filmmakers and writers, we are very greedy. We just want a story which is engaging. When we heard the story, we thought we should make this film and the first thing we told Sanju was, ‘We are going to make this film like this. Do you have the courage to see that? The way you told us your story, when we adapt it on screen, will you have any problem?’”

“Sanju is a brave guy. I don’t think there’s any actor who can open up about his life like he did and say, ‘Go, make the film.’ Sanju has been courageous. He hasn’t seen the whole film till now. I keep telling him to watch it, but he insists he would watch it up on its release. So, there was never that pressure of projecting someone. This is not an ad film,” Hirani, who is also the film’s co-writer, told reporters.

The liberty that directors and writers often take with biopics is to fictionalise it in parts. However, Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi asserted that Sanju is based on facts, although they have added drama elements to suit the big screen and also compressed a few characters into one person to limit the runtime of the film.

“I don’t think we have added fiction but sometimes you do need to dramatise something or make a funny scene funnier. We just hear a situation. We don’t know what dialogues were exchanged between people. But the effort has been to make the whole film on facts. There is dramatisation and things like that,” said the director.

“We had to collapse certain characters into one. So there’s dramatisation at that level,” added Joshi. To which his director and co-writer said, “Also, we had to compress it as you can’t tell a 55-year-old journey in two hours. So, you have to leave certain bits and collapse few portions.”

Finally, Vidhu Vinod Chopra added that their intention was to steer clear from “controversial” stuff. He said, “Many things in this film were also toned down. Also, we didn’t want any controversial stuff. Like I said, it’s very important to know what the film is saying. Once you are clear about that, your whole film then revolves around that message.”

The team, however, did not elaborate on the “controversial” portions that they have left out from the biopic. Sanju, which also stars Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor and Vicky Kaushal, will arrive in theatres on June 29.