Rajkumar Hirani explained the reasons for making a film about Sanjay Dutt‘s life while addressing claims that ‘Sanju‘ aimed to “whitewash” the actor’s image. He pointed out that Dutt, who served a five-year prison sentence for his involvement in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, is not considered a close friend, and Hirani emphasized that he did not need the work. Instead, it was the compelling nature of the story that drew his interest. Additionally, Hirani acknowledged that his latest film, ‘Dunki,’ did not perform as well at the box office as he had hoped.
Talking to Komal Nahta on Game Changers, Hirani told how Sanju came to be. “I got inspiration for Sanju after hearing Sanjay Dutt’s stories from him,” he said. He recalled, “Sanjay Dutt was out on parole. He came out and called me. He said, ‘What are you up to? Please come meet me.’ I went there to meet him. This was the phase when he was very much alone and not a lot of people would visit him. Despite having done two films with him, I was not close friends with him. Before this incident, I had no memory of sitting with him and having deep conversations or spending an evening. Our relationship was limited to work. But this one day, I felt like he was venting out to me. He started to share his stories and began to talk about his father. This was it, and I went back home.”
Over the following days, Sanjay kept reaching out to Rajkumar, which led Hirani to see the potential for a film. He recalled, “It hit me that all of his stories are extremely amazing. Maybe there is a film.” At the time, making ‘Sanju’ wasn’t even on the cards. “At that time, we were writing ‘Munna Bhai.’ ‘Sanju’ was a ready-made material that we received out of the blue. I found the father-son equation interesting. Then I met his family and friends, and it became a film.”
Hirani responded to accusations that ‘Sanju’ attempted to clean up Sanjay Dutt’s image by sharing an experience from an interview. He recounted, “During an interview once, I was asked if I made Sanju whitewash Sanjay Dutt’s image. I was like, ‘What is your problem with him?’ He said, ‘He kept the gun with him.’. I was like, ‘So, we have shown him keeping the gun. We even showed how he called his friend to throw it in the water and destroy it. We also showed he was a drug addict. We even showed he slept with his best friend’s girlfriend. We also showed he was a brat. What is it that you think I have not shown to whitewash his image? People developed a perception based on what they have read about him around. Nobody knows him firsthand.’”
The filmmaker emphasized that the decision to make ‘Sanju’ was driven entirely by the story, rather than personal connections. He remarked. “I am not an out-of-work director to be so desperate to make a film to whitewash someone’s image. Neither was I that close friends with him. I was just greedy about the story. It wasn’t like I just heard his side of the story, but I also spoke to his friends and family. I even spoke to a police officer and questioned them, ‘Just tell me that you had kept a gun; everyone knows about it. Was there a connection? Do you think he ever knew that about this thing? If this is the case, then I won’t make the film.’ He said, ‘There was no connection; he was stupid to keep the gun.’”
