It's been two years since the release of Imtiaz Ali's masterpiece 'Tamasha' which starred Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone in lead roles. Talking about the film, Imtiaz shared how he often comes across people who tell him that the film changed their life. “Wherever I go now, I meet very passionate people who say that 'Tamasha' has affected them positively and changed their lives. I am actually surprised by the number of people who have come up to me and said very passionate things — how after watching a scene in the film or the film as a whole, they decided to change their career. I can see it in their eyes that they are not lying. Recently I went to Lucknow and there also I met few such people. So, I think the film has affected positively and that is all that remains of the film. I think it has gone down well with the people to put it mildly,” he said.
Talking about how well he takes criticism, he said, “Of course I would like all my films to do very well and would want all views to be positive, but that is never the case. Then I understand that people will have opinions and if it is coming from a point of honesty, then I think negative views are as good as positive views because they can actually tell you what you have done wrong. It is going to be up to me to follow it or not. I actually don’t mind criticism, I have real instances in my mind on how it has improved me. I have always found people around me who are criticising me openly but without any ill will and only for love. I am very used to that and I accept that as long as it is genuine.”
Talking about working with Deepika and Ranbir, the filmmaker said, "Working with Ranbir and Deepika was a discovery for myself as well. Through their performances, I was seeing my story, though in a new light. I understood most things about freedom of life and concepts of the past, and also the angst of the relationship,” he said. Speaking about choosing the destinations for his films, he said, “Mostly, if I write a story, there is some sort of a reason that I visit some place mentally. For instance, for 'Rockstar', I wanted a dark European city, not a bright place like Switzerland, which is kind of lovey-dovey place. Prague was that place for me. I had not visited Prague, and then I saw it in pictures and had an opinion about it.”
Talking about choosing Corsica for 'Tamasha', where Ranbir and Deepika meet and hide their real identities from each other, he said, “For 'Tamasha', I wanted a place so outlandish that people can go there with the confidence that no one can recognise them there." He also revealed that Ranbir and he didn't carry any baggage about 'Rockstar' and maintained professionalism during the shooting of 'Tamasha'. “What we did that is that we dispelled that (baggage) very soon. When we worked, we never spoke of 'Rockstar'. It was a very new journey. We were not visiting that film again,” he concluded.
