'Jugjugg Jeeyo' director Raj Mehta: 'Entertainment' is the signature of my cinema

He made his Bollywood debut as a director with Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan-starrer family drama 'Good Newwz', though the storyline was not a quintessential family drama that Hindi cinema has seen before.

Now that director Raj Mehta is gearing up for his second feature film 'Jugjugg Jeeyo', he says no matter which genre he explores, his core signature is 'entertainment'.

The director shares how his mind starts weaving a story from an interesting one-liner. For his debut, it was 'two couples and sperm exchange'. For his latest film 'two married couples of two-generation and they are on verge of divorce'.

Decoding his thoughts behind how he defines his signature as a filmmaker, in conversation with IANS Raj opens up.

Raj said, " Keeping the rest of my thoughts aside, I strongly believe that cinema is for entertainment. For me, entertainment is something that evokes emotion, be it laughter, crying, excitement by watching an action scene or leaving the theatre with a thought in mind. On one hand, I do not want to limit myself to one specific genre like comedy, drama, thriller or action. I want to explore everything but find a subtle balance between the genre I am working on, and its entertainment value."

Since the film 'Jugjugg Jeeyo' is striking the conversation around marriage and divorce, in the last couple of years, on the OTT space there were multiple films and series have been released on the same topic. Therefore the conversation around it has happened extensively.

Raj said, that was one of the challenging yet exciting part of making 'Jugjugg Jeeyo'.

Interestingly along with actors, film directors have also become a crowdpuller of the audience to the theatre be it Rohit Shetty, SS Rajamouli, Prashanth Neel in recent times.

Asked his thoughts on the changing role and responsibility of a film director, Raj said, " You see film was always a director's medium and it will remain the same. Yes, stars become the face of the film and fans surely come to watch them but at the end of the day, if the film is not good, which is envisioned by the film director in collaboration with actors, it won't make any mark."

"But yes, these days, the common audience is also becoming more aware of the process of filmmaking which is very collaborative. Perhaps that is why, even a common audience notices the contribution of art directors, cinematographers etc. In the end, the director is the captain, and all our cast, crew, and producers submit to one vision and ride on the same boat," Raj signed off.

Produced by Karan Johar, directed by Raj Mehta, 'Jugjugg Jeeyo' starring Varun Dhawan, Anil Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Kiara Advani - releases in theatres on Friday.