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”Satya 2 is not at all a sequel to my earlier film Satya. If I have to explain Satya 2 in one line, I’d say that it is about a man whose thinking starts where the earlier Don’s thinking ended. I have set out to show that the underworld will never die but just keep on changing its form, and history is witness to the fact that every new form of underworld has always originated from the thinking of one particular individual,” avers Ramgopal Varma in conversation with Jyothi Venkatesh …

You say Satya 2 is not a sequel to your earlier film Satya. Can you explain this?
”In the sense that there is no difference between how a Dhirubhai Ambani reinvented the corporate world by moving away from the ways of Tatas and Birlas and how a Dawood Ibrahim reinvented the underworld by moving away from the lines of Karim Lala, Haji Mastan etc.
“In what way is Satya 2 different from Satya ?”
If Satya was about a guy who was affected by the prevailing situation in 1998, but went on
to shape the then existing underworld, Satya 2 is about a guy who comes in 2013 when the underworld does not exist at all. It is clear that whenever there is a vacuum in any lucrative business, there will always be an entrepreneur to step in.”
Do you mean to say that the underworld has lost its fangs ?
”I do not at all mean that the underworld does not exist at all nowadays.Stray killings
like that of the crime journalist J. Dey do happen once in a while.What I mean is that big Dons
like Chhota Shakeel etc., are inactive now and there has been no big Don on the scene at least for the last fifteen years for all practical purposes.”
What have you set out to prove with Satya 2 ?
”I should confess that I have reached a pinnacle point in my understanding of the ways and means of the underworld and the corporates and I have put all that in Satya 2. I am
creating a futuristic gangster. It took a Dhirubhai Ambani to reinvent the corporate world and Satya 2 is all about reinventing the underworld. When I say futuristic, it is not in terms of science fiction but in terms of the fact that there is no precedent for the protagonist of Satya 2,who starts a new underworld company based on his study of the mistakes of all the earlier Dons also on the ways he develops to deal with the modern day policing methods.”

You have chosen to make Satya 2 with a bunch of new comers though you have worked with stars. Why ?
”I wanted to make a movie like Satya 2 with believable characters. I wanted a guy who
looks like the guy next door with powerful eyes. Puneet Singh Ratn fitted the bill. It took me just two minutes to say yes to Anaita Soti when I saw her in a lift, because she is very inch a girl next door. I cast Aradhana Gupta because she is a model and wants to be an actress and she plays a wannabe actress in Satya 2. I did not cast stars because they already have an impact on the audiences. To design something with the stars, as a filmmaker, keeping in mind their body of work has its own excitement.”
How do you plan to go about marketing your non star cast film ?
”Since Satya 2 isn’t a star cast film, I do not believe in going to reality shows to plug my film. Even Satya wasn’t at all publicized when I released the film almost two decades ago.
How do you market a non star cast film aggressively ?
The whole marketing is a sham these days.”
Do you consider yourself a brand because you are a well known filmmaker in Bollywood ?
”What is a brand ? A film either works or tanks at the box office. A brand is just media made whereas a film is a brand by itself. Just by being known, you cannot hope to be a brand.”
So, what next?
”The reason I decided to be a filmmaker is that I wanted to make films on subjects that
excite me. I am always full of ideas waiting to be explored on the screen. I have made films on all genres.Now I am keen on making a comedy, an adventure film and also a realistic love story.”

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