You had once planned Aladin as a Bengali film in today’s Calcutta with the character using the Metro Railway. How much Bengaliness remains in the movie?

He is still called Aladin Chatterjee. But he is not really a Bengali per se. He is just a Bengali staying in this fictional town called Khwaish where the movie is set. All the elements I had planned are still there but in a different form because the setting has changed.

What about the three wishes Bachchan’s Genius offers Aladin? Is that a nod to bhooter raja’r teen bor?

It’s there in the Arabian Nights. I think Satyajit Ray took it from there. Also, three wishes is the usual package. That’s what we have always been told.

Everybody who works with Amitabh Bachchan for the first time always narrates an overwhelming experience. What was it for you?

For me there was no benchmark. What fascinated me about Mr Bachchan the most is how well-versed he is about all the technicalities of filmmaking. It’s striking how much he knows about the medium. So all of us benefited a lot because of his presence on the sets. That truly was a huge eye-opener for me. He is like a film school. You don’t realise that as a viewer.

Is it difficult to direct someone like him? Were there times when you kept quiet because it was Amitabh Bachchan?

No, no you can tell him anything. But, of course, there is a protocol to it, a manner in which you have to tell him. When he is there on the sets, he respects you as a director and in return he expects to be respected as an actor. If there’s something I don’t agree with, I would say that. Otherwise what am I doing as a director? Also what makes him Amitabh Bachchan is what he brings to the role. You just have to discuss the basic essence of the character and he will bring his own little bits to it.

Your Aladin is played by Riteish Deshmukh. He has only been successful in multistarrers. Can he pull off a hit on his own?

Aladin is a concept and it has to work as a concept. It has to work as an overall product. Like Jhankaar Beats as a product worked. It didn’t matter that it had unknown actors, an unknown director and unknown music directors. Similarly, my other film Home Delivery wasn’t a product appealing enough even though it had a bigger budget and bigger stars. So, it all depends on the final product.

You had asked Vishal-Shekhar to compose each of the songs of Aladin as a tribute to some Amitabh Bachchan song. Isn’t the film turning out to be too much of an Amitabh Bachchan movie rather than Riteish’s film?

It always was an Amitabh Bachchan movie. How can it be a Riteish Deshmukh film? If Riteish thinks it’s a Riteish Deshmukh film, he is kidding himself. We all knew it from the start. From the day Riteish and I planned this film, we all knew that first it was an Amitabh Bachchan film, then it was a Sanjay Dutt film and only after that it was a Riteish Deshmukh film.

Sanjay Dutt looks a misfit in most films he stars in, these days. What makes him the Ring Master in Aladin?

He fits perfectly. His whole real life persona actually matches the role of the Ring Master. I needed someone who was big, a little heavy, someone very content with life. He is not one of those villains who has to do fancy things to prove himself. Ring Master is a cool dude, he knows where he stands. Also, I think he looks pretty cool in the film.

In Bollywood, whenever there’s been a film with lots of visual effects, the story gets lost somehow. Does Aladin take care of that problem?

Visual effects is just another tool I have used to tell my story. Visual effects is not my film. Visual effects is as much my film as are editing, cinematography, action and art direction. It’s just another faculty. It’s not the university. The university is much bigger. And how well all these faculties work add to the credibility of the university, which is the film. You can’t let the tool take over the movie.