Hansal Mehta is a prestigious film director, writer, actor and producer, who has been part of the entertainment industry for a long time. The director recently recalled his first job as filmmaker, for the show Khana Khazana, which became the base of his successful career. In an interview with Mashable, he also opened up on how celebrity chef, Sanjeev Kapoor became the face of the show, and a household name.
Sanjeev became a star and was the biggest name in the Indian cooking-shows industry in the 1990s and 2000s. However, not everyone was confident that he could make it work. Hansal said about his first job as a filmmaker, “ZeeTV had just started so I went there. I wrote a proposal, a flow chart actually, about what the show will be like. I thought I was so cool. Within three weeks, Zee TV gave me a check, saying ‘yes, you make the show’. The start was phenomenal. You almost feel like ‘F*ck, you’ve arrived.’ I got a show based on food! Both things together.”
In a candid chat with BT, Kapoor at a product launch event in Mumbai opened up about this project saying, “I wasn’t ready for a biopic. There is a lot more to do in life. However, everytime when someone asked me if I would like to have a biopic on me, I would always say that there is this one person and the day he says he wants to make a film on me, I would say yes! His name is Hansal Mehta. A few months ago he said let’s make the film and I jumped on the bandwagon.”
Interestingly, Hansal Mehta is the one who discovered Sanjeev Kapoor and directed the show Khana Khazana. The show that became quite a popular cookery show made Sanjeev a famous name across the country back in the 90s.
“There has to be justice done to this biopic. You just don’t need a passionate filmmaker, but also someone who is passionate about food. Hansal loves food. Also, the two of us started (our respective careers) together. He knows me and my struggles. He doesn’t have to extract about my life from me. The two of us worked together on that show for a good decade.”
Ask Sanjeev to name the actor who’s playing the protagonist and he says, “There are two actors in the discussion, let’s see who we settle things with. I did meet one of the top actors at a function recently and we spoke about this biopic. He looked excited and said that he would like to be a part of this film. He said, “Sir main bohot mehenat karunga to bring this famous Chef live on screen, but yeh jo aapki Buddha jaisi smile hai, woh main kaise leke aaunga?”
