'Ahaan Panday & Aneet Padda were film buffs first, not influencers': Director Mohit Suri on his 'Saiyaara' leads

Mohit Suri seems to have scored another goal as word on the street is that his latest film, Saiyaara, sees the filmmaker return to form. The casting of two newcomers, Ahaan Pandey and Aneet Padda, seems to have worked wonders for the film, coupled with the film's music. Suri believes casting actors who happen to be cinephiles first helped give their work the necessary edge, adding that they saw his previous work to prep for their roles in the Yash Raj Films production.

"It's important to watch the films you're working on, the kind of person you're working with, because somewhere, something of yours bleeds into your film. So, what I like the most about these two was that they were film buffs before they became actors and not fashion icons and so-called influencers," said the filmmaker, who made his debut with Zeher.

Speaking of, Saiyaara has a connection to Zeher in that Suri got the idea for the former while listening to the song 'Woh Lamhe Woh Baatein from the latter. The song took him back to when he met his wife Udita Goswami. "When I made this song, I was standing under a hoarding of another film that Udita did, called Paap. I told a school friend, 'She's so beautiful, I want to marry this girl.' Today, 21 years later, I'm married to her and share two children," said Suri in a conversation with PTI.

Suri's idea of a love story is the kind that conveys the pain of heartbreak and separation, not the feel-good aspects of it. "In love, there will be pain. There is a certain whitewashing in a rom-com where everything is hunky-dory. When there is separation in love, it hurts; if it doesn't hurt, it's not love enough to let the person go. Maybe I put more spotlight on it. For me, love is not about dancing in the mountains and flowers. Even though I've done that in some context, like in Humari Adhuri Kahani, not the dancing part. If love is not real, then it's not felt. I believe in it more than I fantasise about it, and that's why I try to make films about love," he added.

One of the notable aspects of Suri's films is the music. He explains that it's the script that inspires the music. The filmmaker's work has spawned such memorable tracks as 'Agar Tum Mil Jao', 'Woh Lamhe Woh Baatein', 'Aadat', 'Tujhe Dekh Dekh', 'Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai', 'Chal Chale Apne Ghar', 'Haal-E-Dil', 'Sunn Raha Hai', 'Tum Hi Ho', 'Galliyan', 'Hamari Adhuri Kahani', and 'Phir Bhi Main Tumko Chahunga'.

"The songs have always been situational," he shared. "It's the film that inspired them. I find it so much easier when you have a script, a character, a situation. So, if the music of my film is good, it's because the film inspired it."

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