Days before Ahmed Khan’s first directorial venture in over a decade hits theatres, t2 sat down with him to chat about Baaghi 2, his hero Tiger Shroff and remaking the song Ek do teen. 

This is the first movie you’ve directed in years!

Yes, I just took a break for seven-eight years. Apart from being a director and choreographer, I am also a photographer, producer... I do television reality shows. I write, I’m a director of photography and I even direct ad films. So, I’ve been off direction for a while, not from work. Also, I was offered some really big films and they were musicals, dance films, a comedy film, a romcom — there were two-three offers every year. But I felt that I wanted to do something I was really sure about.

What was it about Baaghi 2 that made you want to direct again?

I’ve always wanted to do an action film, something like the Dhoom series. I didn’t want to do family entertainment or comedy with action. I wanted to do a hardcore action film. I was waiting for something like that when Baaghi 2 came my way. The combination of this script, Sajid Nadiadwala as a producer and Tiger Shroff as the hero is an opportunity that you don’t let go of. 

You call Tiger the ‘complete hero’.

There are actors and there are heroes. When you talk of great actors, you think of Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar and Pankaj Kapur. When you think of a hero, you think of someone who’s not just an actor but also a fighter and a dancer. He is someone who is fighting a hundred people but can convince you that he’s going to win in the end.

That, for me is a hero. Internationally, a superhero needs to have a cape or wear his underwear over his pants. But in Bollywood, every hero is a superhero; he doesn’t need to get bitten by a spider or come from outer space to become one. As long as he has his “maa ka aashirwaad”, he can take on anything. So, you need a hero who can give you bare-bodied shots any time, who is ready to shoot a dance or a stunt or a fight sequence any time. 

All of Tiger’s movies so far have been action films. As a director, is it important for you to present him differently so that it stands out from the work he’s done before?

Yes. My main worry was that Tiger has done everything in his previous films, but the people who’ve shot him have not represented him correctly. What I’ve done, for example, for a bare-bodied shot of Tiger, is I’ve deepened his tan and worked on his body make-up. Now, he’s not just bare-bodied and fighting people, he’s bare-bodied and jumping through a helicopter. I’ve just added scale to his action, added that little bit that a technician needs to do to lift it. Otherwise, for this boy, the sky’s the limit.

What is this fascination with action?

I belong to a fraternity of choreographers. For me, doing songs in different ways is not exciting at all. So, this is an opportunity for me. What people don’t know about me is that if I wasn’t a choreographer, I’d be a martial arts teacher. The action is there in me, but my career was in dancing. I knew if I had to make a film, I’d have much to offer as an action director. All the action in this film is designed by me and I’ve gone about it as a choreographer would; that means the beauty gets retained, while the action is still thrilling.

What is more fun for you — choreographing something new every week, or directing an entire film?

Both have got their own charm. As a choreographer, you’re barging into someone else’s set, with a hundred dancers and some music, shooting for five days and you’re out. Directing is like taking the whole burden, becoming the captain of the ship and driving the entire film till the release date. As a technician, it’s the same work — the same cameras, the same set. The only thing that one needs to change is the attitude. One is barging in as a guest and the other is being the host. I like doing both.

What’s next?

I’m doing Baaghi 3, we’re already working on it.

We have to talk about Ek do teen. How did that conversation start? What was the idea behind doing that song?

We needed one song in the film in the second half, something like a Chikni Chameli. The remix genre is working, whether it’s Kaala chashma, Tan tana tan or Hawa hawai. Nobody’s making original numbers anymore. And I felt that if I had to go for a remake, I wouldn’t go for anything normal. If I had to do it, I’d rather pay tribute to a song which is the mother of all songs and that for me was Ek do teen. It’s like remaking Sholay or Mr. India — you’ll get both likes and dislikes. At least, I’m happy that Saroj Khan has met us and blessed us and N. Chandra has spoken so highly and is proud that his song has been given a new life. I feel really happy that youngsters today are hearing this song. We have Jacqueline (Fernandez) who’s the best dancer apart from Katrina (Kaif) today, we have the costumes done by the best, Manish Malhotra, and we had Ganesh (Acharya) choreograph it.

Why did you have Ganesh choreograph it rather than do it yourself?

I would have loved to do it, but I was so busy doing my post-production and handling my action edit. I didn’t want to compromise even a bit on Ek do teen and it was a big thing for me to give away a song but I couldn’t have done justice to it. So, I felt the best guy to do an item song would be Ganesh and that’s why we called him. 

The backlash online was immediate. How did Jacqueline take it?

She was okay with it, because we knew it would go both ways. A few months back, the Hawa hawai song didn’t get that much of a backlash because Vidya (Balan) did it in a different way. But we wanted to create the same energy as the original and we knew the reaction would be both positive and negative. We expected to get 10 million views in two days, but it got 14 million on the first day and now it’s crossed 40 million. By the time we release, we’ll probably have thrice the number we initially expected to hit, so it’s completely worth it. Of the four-five crore people who watch and comment, only 40-50 lakh will actually come and watch the film. So, we don’t really care about most of the people commenting online, most are not a film-going audience.