Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 4 Filmmaking Tips

Stick To Your Core

What is imprinted on the mind, what stays with you in the formative years –  it's very difficult to wipe that out, to remove it from the essence of your being. It keeps haunting you. The core should remain. People make film with monies or budgets, I make my films with that. That's what stimulates me and eggs me on. That's what gives me the madness to go and achieve much more than what I can – to prove a point to the world, get accepted or be loved. I feel like that I'll never let go.

Have A Laugh

I love laughing. I like people with wit in them and a sense of humour is very important. Even when I am doing a scene where say Rani (Mukerji) is asking Amit ji (Amitabh Bachchan), in Black that she needs to experience what love is so therefore you please make love to me – the three of us were just cracking up and falling down and laughing.

Be Spontaneous

I am always changing what is on paper one day before and the actors have already received it. The next day when the actors come out of the van, I have another paper. So they run back into the van. I say, "Be spontaneous!" I like to play the scene at that moment based on what is happening to me. I sit on the set when it's been made for hours and hours and days and days together. Because I feel that space is what is going to make me do a scene. Even if it's an actual location, I keep sitting there not drawing or writing, I don't like to do all that. A scene has to emerge on its own at that point of time. By the time the actors come in their costumes and everything is in place, it feels different from what you were doing when you were writing in a room alone in your mind.

Keep Munching

On the set I eat popcorn, peanuts, chana – all the riffraff in the world. It keeps me occupied and I talk less therefore. I keep eating so sometimes when I get angry, I quickly stuff my mouth. I had too much of anger in me so I used to just chew gum to keep quiet. And sometimes when you get angry and you keep chewing harder and you say, 'Let it be,' and you put another one. It keeps you occupied and it takes away lot of your unnecessary expression which might hurt or disappoint people.