4 min learnMumbaiSep 2, 2026 11:39 AM IST
By the point Meghna Gulzar made her first movie, her father and legendary poet, filmmaker, and lyricist Gulzar had already gained seven Nationwide Awards. He had even retired from path after his 1999 swansong, Hu Tu Tu, on which Meghna labored as an assistant director. Meghna’s mom and veteran actor Rakhee had additionally gained a Nationwide Award by then, and had transitioned from a number one girl within the Nineteen Seventies to a well-liked character artist within the Nineties and early 2000s.
When Meghna Gulzar’s profession didn’t take off
In addition to Hu Tu Tu, Meghna had additionally assisted his father on his 1996 Nationwide Award-winning interval political thriller Maachis. She had additionally assisted veteran filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and studied filmmaking at New York College. However these didn’t result in her saying her arrival with success. Her 2002 directorial debut failed on the field workplace regardless of starring two formidable main women.
Filhaal, revolving round surrogacy, starred Tabu and Shilpa Shetty. Meghna adopted that up with the 2007 romantic comedy Simply Married, starring Fardeen Khan and Esha Deol, which additionally didn’t work on the field workplace. “I’ve had a part in my profession the place my movies didn’t work, and I didn’t get work for a few years. That modified with Talvar,” Meghna advised Bollywood Hungama in a current interview.
She confessed that she didn’t change something about herself or her strategy to filmmaking whereas helming her 2015 breakthrough. The crime thriller, impressed by the Arushi Talwar double homicide case, starred late Irrfan Khan, Neeraj Kabi, Konkona Sen Sharma, and Tabu amongst others. “It was the story that I used to be telling that modified,” added Meghna.
Gulzar and Rakhee’s recommendation to Meghna
Meghna revealed that it was “harder” for her mother and father than it was for her to take care of her tough patch earlier than Talvar. “They had been each very profitable in their very own proper in the identical business, and but fully helpless as a result of they couldn’t do something to make me profitable,” stated the filmmaker. However even then, they by no means inspired her to promote her soul as a storyteller.
“At the moment, what they’d advised me, ‘Don’t betray your individual sensibility. If the work has to occur, it’ll come. You simply do your work. Don’t fear concerning the fruits of that work. You simply keep true to your half.’ I believe I put it on take a look at whereas I used to be making Talvar as a result of I used to be making a movie of that style for the primary time. So, I simply went with my intuition, and did solely what my intuition stated to do. And the viewers appeared to love it. Then that’s what I stayed with,” added Meghna.
After the success of Talvar, Meghna scored her maiden Rs 100 crore hit with interval spy thriller Raazi, starring Alia Bhatt. She then made Chhapaak in 2020, which starred Deepika Padukone as acid assault sufferer Laxmi Agarwal, however that movie didn’t yield desired outcomes on the field workplace. Even her newest directorial, period war drama Sam Bahadur, starring Vicky Kaushal as Discipline Marshall Sam Manekshaw, acquired shortchanged by its conflict with Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s 2023 blockbuster household crime drama Animal, starring Ranbir Kapoor.
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However Sam Bahadur fetched Meghna her maiden Nationwide Award for Finest Function Movie Selling Nationwide, Scoial and Environmental Values. Meghna’s next is a police procedural, Daayra, starring Kareena Kapoor and Prithviraj Sukumaran, which is slated to launch in cinemas on September 18.
