Ashutosh Gowariker talks about the difficulties in making ‘Lagaan’ as it completes 20 years. He expains how they managed to pull off a film that has gone down in history.
Aamir Khan was initially not interested in the movie and then had second thoughts when Ashutosh persuaded him. The ice was broken but Aamir was still reluctant to produce it at least. Gowariker did the rounds of many producers who found that the commercial elements were missing in the screenplay and one of them blasphemously even suggested that after the victory, ‘a member of Aamir’s team should insert the stump into one of the loading member’s team’s stomach’. Gowariker told the person across the table that he would give him something of that kind at a later date but it couldn’t be in his ‘Lagaan’. Clearly, the man was not going to give up.
“The clincher came after six months. As time rolls by, I think we all evolve. Aamir and I were on the same page and we set about making the movie,” Ashutosh said.
He says that he and Aamir also had some creative differences with the cinematographer Anil Mehta during the picturisation of a song.
Gowariker agreed that Ameesha Patel, Preity Zinta and Sonali Bendre had refused the film. But the man on the mission was undeterred by their back-offs, Gowariker said that he wanted a relatively unknown face who was an excellent dancer- and when Gracy from the TV serial ‘Amanat’ uttered her first line in her first audition, he knew he had found Lagaan’s Gauri.
