Shiva is the remake of my first film. That was set in the college campus. This one has the same premise but is set in the police station. I wanted to explore what happens to a man who finishes his police training and becomes a sub-inspector in Mumbai, the clash between the idealism of a police academy and the practicality of a big city police station.

Shiva is what you call new wine in old bottle. I wanted to make the same story with contemporary techniques like surround sound and new editing patterns which I didn’t have in 1990-91. Also, I wanted to go back to my roots. See, we are no longer the same people. So even if we treat the same subject it will be different after 15 years. Then I was younger, my experience was lesser. Making Shiva all over again was a nostalgic trip.

The genre of action movies has disappeared in the last few years. I want to bring back that raw and realistic action of the 1970s when the best of Mr Bachchan’s films were released. When Mr Bachchan took the five-year sabbatical, heroism ended. When he came back, he was the superhero. There was no more realism in films like Shahenshah. Then the music companies took over and used movies as vehicles for their music videos.

Every film is the reflection of a state of mind. Satya and Company were essentially relationship films. Shiva brings back the hero-villain divide. The honest cop against a corrupt system has been done to death since Zanjeer and at least 100 films have been made on the topic. I myself made Ab Tak Chhappan and Shool. So they are all the same story, it’s how you shape up the characters.

Mohit Ahlawat is someone whom I have liked from the time he walked into my office. I liked his stare. Initially I thought of him as a negative character. But then I changed my mind and looked at him in the action hero mould. Yes, he did James, which flopped. But in Shiva his character has been developed differently.

Shiva is the new girl in my life.

Viewers are not animals. They can be divided into romantic film viewers and action film viewers. You may say that people today are not watching action films. I may say that directors today are not making action films. So it is a question of whether they are watching or we are making. If personally you don’t like action films, you don’t have to watch Shiva.

Stars can be good or bad. Sometimes their experience or image can help the film. Sometimes the baggage they carry can be irritating.

No actor is trained. Ninety per cent of actors in our industry are not trained. The clarity of the characters matters.

Unlike my other films, Shiva does have songs. There are two-and-a-half songs, composed by Illaya Raja. That’s because Shiva is a formula film.

Sholay does not have any flaws. It is like Ramayana. Just like you like to hear Ramayana again and again, you like to see Sholay again and again. Ramayana comes in different forms to you. Ram Gopal Varma Ki Sholay is my form of Sholay.

I have never done anything original. Every single shot in my films is copied from somewhere. I’ve copied from Spielberg, Shyam Benegal, Ramsay brothers, etc.

The opening shot of Company has eagles flying over the city of Mumbai. That’s copied from Mackenna’s Gold. It wasn’t in the original script. My cameraman just found it in the sky. While watching the rushes, I thought of Mackenna’s Gold. To incorporate the shot, I had a voiceover saying: “Very few people know that eagles wait for a month for their prey.” Few people know it because I made it up.

I would like to have Shiva’s work but not be like him. I am a big conman and I don’t stand up for anything.

Cinema is not about storytelling; it is about manipulating emotions. Why are bestsellers made into movies? Because they just love the action in the plot, or something sensual or something that scares you, not the story. The idea is to create an atmosphere. It has a lot to do with the moods.

My all-time favourite film is Sholay and it is indeed a dream job to remake it with my chosen cast.

Apart from Sholay, I grew up watching Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug and Ankur, Ramsay Brothers’ Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche, Gulzar’s Angoor. I liked Spielberg, and films like Mackenna’s Gold…

My cinema is about larger-than-life people. My cinema is about heroes. For me, men should be powerful, women should be sexy.

The reason Ram Gopal Varma Ki Sholay hasn’t happened yet is because things got delayed after Mr Bachchan’s illness. Now it is time to take it forward. In the middle I got time to make Shiva and Nishabd.

What is the story of Sholay? Sholay is about a cop who hires two people to kill the man who wiped out his family. With my Sholay, I am trying to visualise the same story in 2006 Mumbai. Here, an encounter cop hires two goons to kill a gangster who finished his family. So the plotline is the same. But when you bring the Mumbai underworld into the whole set-up, the dynamics change.

Sarkar may have not looked like Godfather, but I can tell all Sholay fans that my version will be like the original Sholay. They will be able to find all the reference points from the original film.

For the first time I want to break rhythms with Sholay. I have always cast people according to their images. But here I am doing a reverse casting. Ajay Devgan doesn’t look or sound like Dharmendra from any angle but he is my Veeru.

I believe in surprising audiences. I think if you surprise them at the theatres, then the plan may go wrong. But if you acclimatise them to the surprise through TV campaign before the release, then they will accept the change. You have to give the audience some time.

I won’t say anything about Karan Johar anymore. He is James Cameron and KANK his Titanic.

Nishabd is not Lolita. Lolita is about a man obsessed with a 14-year-old underage girl. My concept of Nishabd is “bodies age, but feelings don’t”. So it is more of a modern conflict in the mind of an old man. When you lust for someone, the sense of responsibility holds you back. But what happens when the attraction is bigger than the feeling of responsibility? That’s what Nishabd is about.

Mr Bachchan is very difficult to define. After watching him I don’t know what the word actor means. With him, acting is not just emoting. When he is given a situation, he tries to grab the emotions from his observations of real life and then feeling that intensity, he delivers the performance for the camera at my cue of “Action”!

I’m an illiterate. I don’t know Shakespeare. All I have read is Frederick Forsyth, Alistair Maclean and a few comic books. I haven’t seen Satyajit Ray. I haven’t seen Eisenstein. That’s why I remake the films I have seen — Godfather, Sholay and even Shiva.