Ajay Devgan talks about his Diwali release, All The Best
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at 02:27:31 pm on October 15, 2009
You would have thought, with two other big budget, multi-star films releasing tomorrow alongside his All the Best, Fun Begins…, producer-actor Ajay Devgn might be in an excitable state of nerves. Far from it! On Monday evening, when I met him at home over coffee, Ajay was uber cool. Also, sleepy. That’s because it was 8 pm and in the Devgn bungalow at JVPD, it’s lights out at 9. “My daughter Nysa won’t sleep without me,” said Ajay explaining the early nights. “But, yes, I saw the film again yesterday with family and friends who are absolutely honest in their criticism. And, from seven to 65, they were all laughing nonstop! My mother, who normally worries about my releases, was relaxed. And I’ve never seen my father laughing so much. So I’m quite confident the film will work.”
He’s busy dubbing for London Dreams with Salman Khan. And shooting with Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoor for Rajniti. But it’s All the Best that Ajay is living right now. And happily for the producer in him, the book on this Devgn Films release is that it is a clean comedy that families can enjoy for Diwali, there are no double meaning dialogues at the cost of humour, the situations in the script are hilarious, the performances by Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu, Fardeen Khan and, well, Ajay himself are funny and riotous. “The film takes ten minutes to sink in,” Ajay revealed, “but from then on until the climax, you’ll laugh. There is an emotional moment in between. It’s needed. You take a rest in between laughing!” I understand the production of the film in Goa and Hyderabad was one big party. “We had a blast,” Ajay agreed, “this is a good team, and for 80 to 90 per cent of the film, all the characters are in every scene. Well, five are definitely there… and there are seven or eight characters. The climax has 20! All complement each other. When you are comfortable with your co-stars, when the entire cast understands that the film is the most important thing, then there is no stress. It’s team work. You can see that in All the Best. There’s great rapport between Sanju and me, Bips and I always get along well, Fardeen — I just got to know, but what a great guy he is, and Mugdha took just a day to get comfortable.”
Ajay is handsome in his praise for his director, Rohit Shetty, who apparently knows the pulse of comedies. “A comedy improvises,” said Ajay, “but how much works, when do you stop stretching it? Rohit has mastered the knack of entertaining audiences. He stopped well within the limit.” And he’s also generous in his acknowledgement of Sanjay Dutt’s performance: “His best — after Munnabhai, what timing, but Sanju was behaving like a producer… he was more worried about the film than me!” His own performance, Ajay is naturally reluctant to discuss. From action and intense roles that won him two National Awards, he’s now doing comedies. “I’m honest at what I do,” he shrugged, “and I guess that works.”
It was getting onto 9 pm and Ajay was stubbing out his last cigarette when the door burst open. Little Nysa bounded in, cutely dressed for bed, but with a reserve amount of energy and mischief left in her to fuss over her father. “How long,” she demanded. “Five minutes, sweetheart,” the big Bollywood produceractor said unconvincingly. She picked up his phone meaningfully and began to fiddle with the keys. “Nysa… please, not my phone,” Ajay was pleading. “All the best,” I told him slipping out.
