The 63rd National Film Awards were announced yesterday and Bollywood Queen Kangana Ranaut bagged the honour for Best Actress for ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’, making it her third National Award. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the director of ‘Bajirao Mastani’ was hoping that one of his leading ladies, Deepika Padukone or Priyanka Chopra be honoured with the National Award. The Bollywood director says, “Kangana is amazing in her own way. Deep in my heart, as a director-producer, I would have loved if Deepika or Priyanka would have won it because Deepika’s performance in ‘Bajirao Mastani’ was very splendid and special, but the jury felt that Kangana deserves it. There is no doubt that she has done a great job and I am very happy for her but I wished that Priyanka or Deepika would have won it for ‘Bajirao Mastani’,” a little candidly.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali was conferred with the Best Director award for his Bollywood film ‘Bajirao Mastani’. It was after a long time that a dream came true for this celeb in cinema world. “I am very happy. I have been holding onto this dream since 12 years and completed with a lot of hard work. It was a difficult film but I had got the support of an amazing team. This is my first National Award and I am very happy. I could not ask more from God. As a filmmaker this is the best phase of my life,” says Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Before the release of ‘Bajirao Mastani’, the film faced a lot of flak for showing altered history and a different take on the traditional songs as well. Looking back at all the controversies now, SLB feels that these issues can never hamper success. “Controversies keep happening. Before a film releases, people give their expert comment without watching the movie. But I feel that work should be seen first and then objection be taken. During ‘Barjirao Mastani’ and ‘Ram Leela’ there was a lot of protest, but after watching the movie people realised that the intentions were true and efforts were right. All these problems and controversies feel worth it when you get such a big award,” says the filmmaker.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali was not just the director and producer for ‘Bajirao Mastani’, the Bollywood flick which bagged almost all the top honours at most film awards, but was also the composer. SLB states that he had a great time multi-tasking in Bollywood, “I had the challenge of composing music wherein Bajirao, Kashibai would not sing and Mastani would sing only in a particular manner. On the other hand, during direction, I had to shoot for several war scenes, something that I have never done before, but I enjoyed every single minute of making this film.”
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