Films made or unmade by scripts, says Boman Irani, elated at the success of his writing workshop

Actor Boman Irani recently celebrated the third anniversaries of his production house Irani Movietone and his screenplay writing workshop Spiral Bound. When he started these ventures, the idea was to translate his love for films and writing into something that nurtures and inspires younger writers.

“Having been in the business for so long, I wanted to make my own movie. But the fact remained that to make a good movie, you need to have a good script.”

Irani has often emphasised the importance of a good script. It doesn’t matter if your film is starring the biggest actors, he says, if your script doesn’t have substance, people won’t remember it. “Imagine if Virus talked the way he did, but the movie was bad. People wouldn’t have understood what he was doing. Good writing makes good cinematographers, good directors and good actors.”

The significance of writing has increased all the more since the emergence of OTT platforms, feels Irani. One can just switch off the platform and the apps if they don’t relate to the characters or the performance is bad. OTT isn’t like theatres where you sit through the whole movie because you paid for the ticket, points out the actor. “That’s the reason why even for a James Bond flick, the best writers are now hired.”

Irani says, “In the last two years, I’ve learnt the intricacies and nuances of good writing, and shared them with young (and some old) writers. We’ve had nearly 400 sessions with over 500 writers, and I couldn’t be happier.”

Irani feels these ventures have quenched his thirst and passion for writing and filmmaking. It is something that makes him feel empowered and humbled at the same time, realising that no matter how senior, the writers in the workshop still have a yearning to learn.

“I never saw anything that happened in my past as a source of pride for me, because it has already happened. But this, this is one of the proudest moments of my life,” smiles the actor.

“And,” adds Irani, “it’s not just the writing through which they make me feel proud. They help each other out with their scripts, they stand by each other. The way all these writers rallied their support for each other when the pandemic was at its peak, showed me the community spirit they all possess.”

This community spirit is also the reason why Irani can’t pick a favourite out of the projects that he’s worked on in the last two years.

“I learnt and made friends, and enjoyed myself.” Irani says that the marker of a good project for him is when he enjoys being on the set to the fullest. He believes that if you’re miserable making a movie, you’re at the wrong place, because you’re unhappy even while living the dreams of millions of people.

Irani enthusiastically shares that his own script is ready and set to be shot in the next few months. But the only detail he can share as of now is that it’s a fatherson story. He has recently finished a web series, and is eager to begin work on the scripts that come out of Spiral Bound. As of now, he’s content and grateful that stalwarts of the industry, like Shakun Batra, Raju Hirani and Ram Madhvani took out time to share their wisdom with the writers.

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)