Understandably, he is quite excited these days. With his mega-scale war epic Mission Fateh launching on Sahara Manoranjan a few weeks ago, the man is on a natural high and raring to go. The serial has earned a few rave reviews but for the conceptualiser cum director Girish Mallik, it is just the beginning of a long journey.
Mallik the director may take a while to register, but the actor is a well known face. After almost a decade in front of the camera, he decided to call the shots, literally. He took up direction six years ago, and now has quite a few shows to his credit.
He met up with indiantelevision.com's Trupti Ghag at Clapstem Productions where he arranged for a sneak preview of the forthcoming episodes of his serial and spoke about his pet passion ... direction.
Excerpts:
If I am not mistaken, you are commerce graduate, then how did the transition to the small screen happen? The anticlimax was when, after coming to India I performed in an indoor hall, in front of a crowd barely consisting of 200-300 uninterested people. I retired from the scene. It was then that I started working with theatre as a hobby and later moved to television. If it was all smooth sailing as an actor, why did you decide to shift to directing? |
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When was it that you first decide to go behind the camera? |
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Being an actor, has it helped in any way now that you are on the other side of the camera? There are certain actors that can surprise, I do not disturb them. |
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Tell me something about your latest project 'Mission Fateh'. I am told that you conceptualised the show. How did that come about? But that wasn't the main hurdle. I had to compile the matter, which wasn't an easy task. |
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Why was that so, did you face any problems from the army? It was difficult initially to get through the shell but our scriptwriter Brig. (Retd) M M Bhanot and the entire research team managed to break the shell. Now we have the army helping us out voluntarily. |
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You earlier mentioned that the project was designed to be a Sahara project, why is it so? There was a time when I took a 60-member crew to a remote location to shoot but for 10 days but we were stuck in the hotel because of the hostile climate. While I was getting upset about it, everybody at the channel was so understanding that they asked me not get to perturbed and just concentrate on what to do next. So now you are a Sahara loyalist, eh! |
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What are the things that you cannot compromise on as a director? I am a very greedy director. Sahara managing worker's son Sushanto Roy, who played Vijayant Thapar on the screen, after shooting for a month refused to be conned into act henceforth. He said that if I continued to be as demanding, there will be a time when somebody calls in the human rights commission (laughs). What are the other projects you have in pipeline? |
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Seems like you have your hands full. Does that mean we won't be seeing you on the screen anymore? An actor never dies. Maybe some time later. |
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Of late, there have been cases where serials have been taken off air abruptly either because of the TRPs or political pressure. How do you ensure that your works don't come under the axe? Seriously, I try watching the so called popular serials. Tried to be interested and objective, but beyond a point I saw the line blurring and creativity going from being minimal to nonexistent. And it is not the case that there is no creativity. We have the most brilliant writers, directors in the present scenario. |
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What has been your most memorable project so far? Well Vijayant Thapar was great. Puneet Datta's episode that was shot entirely through the father's eye, I took loads of creative liberties with it though, it was excellent. If you take somebody under your wing, what is the quality that you look for in him/her? |