It’s a very lonely society we live in, because sex has become easy and love has become harder to get: Suparn Verma – Times of India

Suparn Verma is doing so much at the moment that it’s hard to keep a count. While he’s largely known for ‘The Family Man‘ in which he directed five episodes in season one, he’s been a writer on the second season. Meanwhile, as a producer, he just experienced a historic moment because Manoj Bajpayee starrer ‘Bandaa‘ released in theatres after its OTT streaming.That’s not all. Suparn’s next show as a director, ‘The Trial‘ starring Kajol will begin streaming on July 14. The writer, director, producer gets talking all about this show, his journey, why he likes being a late bloomer and how life has come a full circle with Ajay Devgn producing ‘The Trial’. All this and much more in this candid conversation! Excerpts:

You’ve had such noteworthy projects coming in, back-to-back as a writer, producer, director. Right from ‘The Family Man’, ‘Bandaa’ ‘Rana Naidu’ and now ‘The Trial’. What’s the feeling like?

I have always followed my gut and heart and hopefully the heart will lead me to write things which connect with audiences in a bigger fashion now and I have just gratitude. There’s immense joy in my heart that the work I’m associated with is connecting in such a big fashion with audiences and I’m getting to collaborate with such amazing talent, whether it’s in front of the camera or behind the camera from across India and the response has been phenomenal.

But in the last few years, have you sort of also changed as a creative individual with OTT coming in? Do you feel more liberated as a creative person?

I was in fact one of the first people to kind of start doing digital stuff. I did a show called ‘Yeh Kya Hua Bro’ in 2017. I got to write ‘Hasmukh’ earlier in the game. My mind always worked a certain way. And I think it was all about keeping yourself busy, honing your craft till your time arrives because there are three words I live my life by, which is change, adapt, evolve. That is the only way it functions. Life is forever changing, things will keep changing. Right now, there is streaming, next there will be AI. We keep wondering ‘what about theatres?’ But, ‘Bandaa’ released as a symbolic gesture in theatres after debuting on OTT, which is historic. But the fact is that, today, it’s a very democratic medium, which kind of gives you a platform for your work, whether it’s a film or series. If OTT platforms give you access to audiences across the globe, then you’re making content in a language which is truly global. You’re collaborating with creators from across the world and that really is a sense of joy.
And in an ever-changing world, you need to have an open mind, instead of trying to hold on to things and time. How can you hold on to change? Things will evolve, things will change. We change every day as people, as individuals. It is part of nature to change and evolve, and it should be.

Having back-to-back projects in which you play various roles and switching from being a writer to a director and producer – has it been chaotic?

Honestly, it’s not chaotic at all. I love to multitask, my mind works at a slightly different speed than most, and I talk faster than most. So, I find it pretty relaxing when I’m doing a lot of things, rather than one thing. I need to do multiple things. I love being in the eye of the storm, And I’m blessed to have great teams that I work with, great collaborators that I work with, who can handle and manage my energy as well as keep pace with it. And that, honestly, is a blessing. Now, at least with people having seen my work consistently, with regularity, they don’t ask me ‘how will you manage?’ They kind of figure that if I’m saying yes, then I will manage.

Let’s talk about ‘The Trial’. How did the ball set rolling on this one?

So basically, I had seen ‘The Good Wife’, long time back, and I really loved the show. So when Banijay and ADF approached me, I immediately said yes. And I’ll tell you my reasons for saying yes. They gave me a free space with the material. The show came out 15 years ago, the jurisdiction was different then, and also the cases shown in the original at that time represented what’s happening to society then. So one, I needed to change the entire legal drama completely. And also, I wanted to somehow mirror present times in what’s happening in Nayanika Sengupta’s (Kajol) life. And funny, the interesting part is sometimes in personal life, she’d make a different decision and in professional life, she’d make a different decision for similar things. This is a duality which I wanted to kind of explore with time. So my one and only wish was Kajol. In the words of a famous co-star, she jumped at my take on it because this is what I wanted to do. We live in a very different world today, from what it was a decade ago, it’s an ultra woke world, extreme, to say the least! We live in an age where relationships are ever changing, infidelity in itself is changing a lot, where today sliding into someone’s DMs, liking a post constitutes emotional cheating, for example. The rules of the game are changing. It’s a very lonely society we live in, because sex has become easy and love has become harder to get, with people having constant access to each other. We live in an upgrade culture, where you’re not just upgrading phones, but you’re always thinking there’s something or someone better out there. We’re constantly thinking, what’s next on my agenda? And then you come to a realisation at some point of time when maturity sets in that maybe that was it, that was the best you would have got, but you just kept on going forward, looking for something better and better. Certain things don’t need an upgrade, they just need honesty, they just need truth.

And then you had Kajol in such a world!

Kajol, who has been the heartthrob of the nation for the last three decades, and always been the girl who the hero wants to steal away. Interestingly, here Kajol is put in a show where the man she loves breaks her heart. She literally starts off rock bottom emotionally, and then rises to stand up on her feet again. She’s also exploring the gray areas of her psyche, not black and white and that’s something which is a challenge. That is what I wanted to explore. That is what she loved. She’s been wanting to do something like this for a long time. She asked me what my take was and how I wanted to play with the story. I gave her my take and she said, ‘done! let’s go for it.’ I’ve seen Kajol in various roles, but this is a new place emotionally that she’s going to go in. That’s the fun part of it.

When you work with such terrific actors, how does the actor-director process work?

You’re going to invest a year and a half, two years of a life into anything you make. If you can’t have fun, if you cannot be happy, then life is too short to be miserable. I think we should just walk away from things or people that don’t make us happy. And I have been blessed to work with some absolutely amazing people, whether it was my team in ‘Hasmukh’, or Raj and DK, and the entire team, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Manoj Bajpayee. Manoj is someone who I’ve known for 18-20 years now. The entire team of ‘Rana Naidu’ became my friends. And then with ‘Bandaa’ again, it was like friends coming together. Most people I’ve worked with, I’ve had very long associations with them and I love that. And now talking specifically about ‘The Trial’, I have a mad energy on set and Kajol matches that mad energy, she loves that energy, because she is mad herself and she loves being happy. It’s not work for us then. And we both have a similar working style. We don’t like to over-prepare too much, because on set, the energy is different. You absorb that and roll with it. So that really changes things and we both behave accordingly. Our working pattern is quite similar in that sense. We don’t mind working hard, doing a lot of work, as long as we’re happy. And she’s absolutely a director’s actor, a complete delight. She completely gives in, she has her ideas and we’ve discussed so much for every scene.

You spoke about long associations with people you’ve worked with. Being a writer on Ajay Devgn starrer ‘Zameen’ to now having him as a producer, how has it been?

Ajay was there for the launch and seeing him at the launch made me feel like life has come a full circle. I told him that too, that, ‘I started off as a writer, writing Zameen and Qayamat also, and today you are my producer launching a show which I’ve written and directed.’ And he was very happy and emotional about it as well. It was a nice moment, a proud moment for him that the guy he believed in way back, has proved his worth. And here I was, directing Kajol, in a show that he’s really proud of. He was very happy with the trailer.

You’ve been around for a while. However, do you think it’s only now that people are able to see your talent?

Honestly, being a late bloomer in life doesn’t matter and I really don’t care. In a way, it’s a good thing that such things come late in life. Because for me, it’s all about working and doing work. Everything else really doesn’t matter, generally doesn’t matter because I’m here to do work. I want to do good work, tell my stories, the way I want to work with good people. And I’m getting to do that. And honestly, that is success for me. For me what matters is, I suddenly don’t wake up in the middle of the night and wonder, ‘oh sh*t’ what if I don’t get work’. Actually, you know what? It’s good I’m getting success late in life. Had I got it early in life, I would have petered out. Today, I’m just, you know, kind of getting started. I’m still the same guy. I’m still the same person. I have evolved. Honestly, I feel like I get paid to play. We are blessed to be in the profession we are in. And this is just a profession. You can’t take it too seriously. I mean, all of us are going to die, right? So, why do we take ourselves so seriously? It’s about having fun and making people smile if we can!

Tell us what’s coming after ‘The Trial’.

I have a show which I’ve written for Hansal Mehta and Jai Mehta, it’s called ‘Lootere’. Then I have a show which I’ve written and directed along with Milan Luthria called ‘Sultan Of Delhi’ which is coming out later this year. I have directed and produced part of an anthology with RSVP Movies and Ashi Dua coming out later. I have Rana Naidu 2, ‘The Good Wife 2’. I have a show that I’m doing, two shows, actually, which I’m doing for some of the platforms that I can’t name right now. I have a couple of movies coming out and I’m doing some stuff in LA as well.

People are really looking forward to ‘The Family Man 3’ though. What’s the update on that?

Raj and DK are my bosses on that show and hence they would be the right people to answer that!