I have let Ranbir Kapoor down: Anurag Kashyap gets candid about the mistakes he made!

2016's been a good year for Anurag Kashyap. There was a public fight with the Censor Board leading to victorious results that will go down in the history of Indian cinema. Then there was Udta Punjab's successful run at the box office. And now, everyone's raving about his villainous act in Akira.

The director is mighty pleased. "I have never got so many calls for any of my films before. I haven't slept the whole day. I couldn't. I have been inundated with calls praising my role from 5 am," he is all smiles as we chat with him at the Phantom office on Saturday. 

Does this make him more confident to take up more films as an actor? "People don't know but I have played the lead role in 3-4 films in 1993-1994," he reveals. Which ones, we ask! "That I won't ever tell you. Then people will find it out. But coming back to your question, I have done a lot of theatre, and special appearances too come easy to me. I have done a few in Luck By Chance, Happy New Year and others. But I felt scared to be in front of the camera. I realised that I can't be an actor. Because I don't have the discipline to be an actor at all."

He explains, "As a director, I can sit back, drink, eat whatever I want to, do what I feel like after wrapping work on the sets. You can't do the same as an actor in a film. You have to maintain a particular look for at least 30-40 days and it's not easy. It needs a lot of discipline. I remember the scene in Akira where I come out of the bathroom in a towel and all that Murgadoss asked me was, 'Sir, can you please suck in your tummy a bit?'," he bursts laughing. "But if someone's offering me an obscene amount of money to act, I will definitely do it," he adds, still laughing. 

But then, the string of successes hasn't let him forget what happened to him last year. With Bombay Velvet crashing down at the box office, it was Anurag murdabad everywhere, he reminisces. "I had gone into depression. There was a time I started feeling that the floods are because of me, the drought is because of me, the accidents here and there are happening because of Anurag Kashyap. People have attacked me and rightly so. But I have learnt from my mistakes. I don't think I will ever try making a film like Bombay Velvet anymore where the production costs will become invisible. Creating Mumbai in itself meant so much money and I didn't realise it then."

The ace filmmaker also feels responsible for his lead actor Ranbir Kapoor. Ranbir too faced a lot of flak after both Besharam and BV - both directed by the Kashyap brothers (Abhinav and Anurag) - tanked at the BO. He was almost written off. A disappointed Anurag tells us, "I think we, as a team, have let him down in many ways. Ranbir is a fantastic artist, a brilliant human being and an actor who wanted to try out something different. He wanted to experiment which not many stars would want to do. And we failed him terribly. I feel completely responsible for this. Not just him, now when I hear studios shutting, I somewhere feel that I am definitely one of the reasons behind it. When the stories come up and there's Bombay Velvet's poster right at the top of the article, it does hurt."

But he has a very interesting take on films and their revenues today. "We live in a world where people will come and tell me that we appreciate the films you make but they won't go to a theatre to watch my films. They would rather watch it at home. My films sell more on Torrent than in the theatres, which is why it's very difficult to bring in the money and convince producers to pool in money for a project. They say Dev D is a hit film, it did just 13 crore business at the box office. 9 out of 10 people say it's one of my best films but I know where they come from. They are the same people who have downloaded it and watched it. Had they gone to the theatres, the collections would have doubled," he retorts. 

But has the failure of BV changed his equation with Ranbir? Anurag asserts in the negative. "Not at all. We keep talking and when I read stories about us fighting, we laugh it off." Anurag also admits that he would love to work with Ranbir again. "He and I have a great working rapport. So why not? But it won't happen in the next two years. He has his plates full with Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Jagga Jasoos, then Rajkumar Hirani's film and also Ayan Mukerji's superhero film. So he won't have the dates. Simultaneously, I am also planning on making a few announcements on my project front very soon. Maybe, in a month's time."

Has he finalised any script? "I am writing a few of them. There are four scripts in my mind. There's a gangster drama and there are two films which will be based out of UP because I believe UP is a Hindi speaking state and more films should be made from the region. Another one is based in Bihar," he signs off.