Directors take blame for failure, actors take credit for success: Hansal Mehta

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who most recently directed Simran, starring Kangana Ranaut, says that directors are usually blamed for a film’s failure, but actor’s take credit for its success.

Award-winning filmmaker Hansal Mehta says it is his observation that when a movie fails its ownership falls on the director, and when it's a success the actor walks away with the accolades.

Director Hansal Mehta at the special screening of the film Stree in Mumbai. (IANS)

"(In) My experience of the last 22 years of making films, whether I like it or not, the director owns the failure and the actor owns the success," Mehta said at the %Privé Soiree in Mumbai on Tuesday.

&Prive HD hosted a screening of 7 Days In Entebbe, and it was introduced by Mehta and Ram Madhvani, director of Neerja.

Madhvani added to Mehta's point, and spoke about how people end up throwing tantrums and fighting when it comes to ownership.

He said: "I think that ownership is not given, it's taken."

Madhvani spoke about his struggles after his first film, saying: "I think you have to fight, scream and take it (ownership) because that's the only way they (big actors) will allow you to have ownership. You have to throw tantrums as ownership is not easy. When you work with smaller budgets, it's easier to get ownership, the bigger the budgets, the more difficult it gets to have ownership.

"In the last 14-15 years after my first short film, Let's Talk, which we funded ourselves, it took me a long time to make my next film because of the idea of ownership," he said.

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