‘Listening to Woh Lamhey again took me back to the moment I fell in love with my wife’: Mohit Suri

During a recent appearance, Mohit Suri reflected on failures, Saiyaara’s success, falling in love with Udita Goswami and why cinema thrives on imperfect moments

Filmmaker Mohit Suri has built a career on stories soaked in emotion, but he admits his own path into cinema was anything but linear. A science student who later studied business management before finding himself on film sets, he laughed that his journey “didn’t add up on paper.” Yet, those confusing years became his training ground. “Each day on set, if you messed up, the cost of producing could change… you learn leadership in chaos,” he said while speaking at All India Management Association’s (AIMA) 70th Foundation Day and 20th National Management Day.

Filmmaker Mohit Suri was speaking at a session in Delhi.

Failure, he believes, is essential. “In between the songs you remember, there are many I tried and failed… and without those, I wouldn’t have made the ones you love,” he said. Even today, he feels the weight of expectations. “With success comes more fear… you feel more watched, more responsible. Nobody really has the answers — you keep learning.”

That anxiety returned during his recent film Saiyaara (2025), which worked despite breaking conventional formulas. With newcomers and no obvious safety nets, the film’s response reminded him to trust instinct. “Sometimes you stop chasing a standing ovation and just try to give an outstanding performance… then art and commerce align,” he said, adding that success only deepens his desire to rediscover the innocence of his first film. “I wish I could go back to that innocence… it was so much fun.”

Cinema, for Suri, is inseparable from his own memories. He recalled how hearing an old song once transported him back to the time he was falling in love with his wife, Udita Goswami. “Music took me back to that moment… I realised stories always start with a feeling,” he said, explaining why his films often lean into music.

On set too, he embraces imperfection. He remembered improvising an emotional scene when a prop went missing — only to later be praised for the shot. “Sometimes when you have limitations, things come out of the box. This is the magic of survival,” he smiled. In an age of AI perfection, he warned, audiences might crave flaws again. “Those imperfections… you can’t program them. Humans don’t plan their mistakes, and sometimes that’s good.”

His advice to young professionals was blunt but honest. “If you’re not willing to give 14 hours a day to something you love, you probably don’t want it enough,” he concluded.