‘Everything you see about Sushmita is real'

‘My definition of a true star is when they enter a room, the energy of the room changes.’

‘She has the aura of a true star.’

“I’m in the business of feelings, in the business of emotions. Mein emotion ki dhande mein hoon. I’m interested in making you cry, making you feel,” says Ram Madhvani says.

Of course, the director has mostly made thrillers, a genre you would not associate with emotion.

Best known for making Neerja, starring Sonam Kapoor, Ram recently rolled out the Web series Aarya, led by Sushmita Sen.

With that, the director -- who gives equal credit to co-directors Sandeep Modi and Vinod Rawat -- fulfills a 10-year-old dream.

“Even though I would like to do more work, sometimes it just does not work out. It’s a difficult mountain to climb.”

The song Bade Achche Lage Hai is pivotal to Aarya. Is that your favourite song?

Please don’t ask me to sing it! (Laughs)

No, no. It seemed to work well because it was emotionised and kept Tej’s character (played by Chandrachur Singh) alive.

My wife Amita, who is the co-producer of Ram Madhvani Films, is the true Hindi film song enthusiast, the one who plays Antakshari and gets friends home to do some Karaoke of Hindi film songs.

I know the songs obviously, but she knows the lyrics too.

So much of my taste in Hindi film music comes from her.

You used retro music in a unique way in the show. Shammi Kapoor’s beautiful and soothing Akhele Akhele has been picturised on a horrific kidnapping.

So much of that is thanks to the editors, Khushboo Agarwal and Abhimanyu Chaudhary.

We knew that we were going to use old Hindi songs.