Ali Abbas Zafar on Salman Khan: I think he's one of the few honest people in the industry

Bollywood director Ali Abbas Zafar has achieved quite a lot in the past decade and that too at the young age of 36. Talking about his films and the money they've earned, he said, “The money is not coming to me, it’s coming in the industry. I just feel that the money corresponds to the number of people who have seen your film. As a filmmaker you only feel empowered when the story you conceived or your thought process is getting connected with your audience. Somehow I think that is the bigger success for a filmmaker.”

He further added, “God has been kind and I have been fortunate to achieve this much in such a less time without coming from a film background.” He further recalled his journey and stated, “I started working when I was still 19. When I realised this is what I wanted to do, I never looked back. I’ve been lucky that I met the right people, from directors to Aditya Chopra to all the actors. They all have been a solid support to my work and my conviction. So it’s just not a single person’s journey, it’s a teamwork. You come in touch with people who channelize your energy in the right way and then you become who you become eventually.”

Talking about having a strong bond with superstar Salman Khan, the director stated, “I think it’s the bond of honesty because I personally think he is one of the very few people in the industry who’s very honest, who is like ‘what you see, is what you get’. And I am somewhere exactly like that. He is so senior to me so my relationship with him has always been like that of a younger brother. We don’t have a director-actor relationship. So when that happens, I can push him to do things which maybe a lot of filmmakers won’t be able to do.”

"Salman understands and respects the kind of hard work I put into a project. He and I come from the same school that you can only raise a question or create a change when maximum people watch it, whether it is the fight within ('Sultan') or whether it’s about raising questions of global tension ('Tiger Zinda Hai'). And if you get rewarded at the box office, there is nothing bigger than that because those people are completely unbiased, they have spent their hard-earned money and their two and a half hours on your film so you are only answerable to those people,” he added. Stay tuned for more updates.