Amitabh Bachchan and Sharmila Tagore with Manjrekar at a Viruddh do; (Top) A poster of Rakht

The term prolific becomes an understatement when you describe Mahesh Manjrekar. As a director, he has not one or two but as many as six projects up his sleeve — Rakht, Life Ho To Aisi, Deha, Struggler, Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav and Viruddh. As an actor too, he is an integral part of many a frame, with the list expanding every single day. And this Friday with Rakht, Manjrekar the maker enters a zone he has never charted before — horror.

“Very consciously, I have avoided being typecast as a director. Throughout, I have done different types of films, but it’s true that I have never tried my hand at horror. Let me tell you, it has been really amazing making Rakht. It is so much fun to both be scared and to scare people.”

Manjrekar doesn’t feel that the plethora of stars in his films will divert the audience attention from his central plot. “I just got plain lucky to have all these good faces and good names in this one film. And every one of them has well-defined roles and contribute to the plot in some way.”

But isn’t doing justice to the juggling a real handful? “That’s not really true,” protests the man who burst on the scene with Vaastav. “I completed the major portion of Laloo… last year with just a little bit left to be completed. For Struggler, I finished shooting last October in eight days flat. I started Life Ho To Aisi in May this year, when we had no other film on the floor. Then I completed Deha recently. And I’ll start Viruddh only in October. I can assure none of my projects has hampered the others.”

What Manjrekar finds most thrilling is to keep juggling between a director, an actor and an actor-director. “As a director I am the most chilled out... As far as acting goes, well, that was thrust upon me in Kaante. Then I realised that it was a good way of making money. The best thing about acting in someone else’s film is that I don’t have to think. But it gets tough when I have to both act and direct. Sometimes it gets really difficult to get into the shoes of the character I am playing, while directing.”

As a director, doesn’t he suggest changes while just acting? “When I do not like other people making suggestions when I am directing, why should I start advising other directors when I am just supposed to act?”

Although every film is special to Manjrekar, he is particularly excited about Struggler, a one-character film where he plays the role of a struggling actor trying to make it big. “The censors have some objections with the film and I have given it for review. That is one film I am going to show to a lot of people before I actually exhibit it. I’ll be coming to every metro to talk about it.”

But his dream project is Viruddh, where he directs Amitabh Bachchan and Sharmila Tagore (coming together after 22 years in Manmohan Desai’s Desh Premi). “I hope that the audiences expect it to be a good film because I know I am making a great film. Only if the expectations are high will the film become even bigger in prospects. I know it is a non-mainstream theme (a 60-plus couple forced to search for faith in human values after the death of the only son) but I promise you it will be a big film, commercially.”

The very mention of Amitabh Bachchan starts Manjrekar off on a Big B fan-club trip. “He is a bad habit. After working with him, it is almost impossible to be comfortable with someone else. He will always give more than 100 per cent and get you such a high. For a person of his stature and ability to come and ask you every morning ‘What do I have to do?’ — it’s quite incredible. He is a director’s delight.”

But if Amitabh is boss, the final word is reserved for the lord. “Satyajit Ray is god. After I saw Pather Panchali, I had decided not to watch any of his other films so that the image I had of him didn’t diminish. Today, we all feel like juveniles watching the films he made so many years back. Some day, I would want to make a film and tell everyone that, here, I have made a film like Satyajit Ray.”