Homi Adjania didn't want to direct 'Cocktail'

Mumbai, July 7 (IANS) If Homi Adjania had his way at first, he wouldn't have directed romantic comedy "Cocktail" at all. He feared it wasn't his kind of film, but then when the "Being Cyrus" director took it up as a challenge, and started considering it as his own film, his dilemma started to fade away.

His last directorial "Being Cyrus", also his debut, released in 2006.

However, when producer Dinesh Vijan, actor Saif Ali Khan's partner in Illuminati Films, offered him to direct "Cocktail", Adjania was sceptical.

"I had two, three offbeat kind of stories, which they found very disturbing. Then Dinesh told me he has this script of 'Cocktail', written by Imtiaz Ali. When I heard the story, I was like 'Why should I tell this story?'," Adjania told IANS.

"Dinesh told me he thought I'll give a fresh take to its story because it wasn't familiar territory for me. I told him I was not interested. But he persuaded me for a month and then I actually realised that I wasn't doing the film because I was scared of not knowing how to do it.

"This format was not my format, there was nothing psychotic in the film! It was just a nice, beautiful love story. So I called him in the morning and told him that I would do it," he added.

He admits he was "shying away" from "Cocktail", which tells the story of three people, essayed by Saif, Deepika Padukone and newcomer Diana Penty.

"I made this my film and that is what it is -- about story telling in a different format, which I love doing," said Adjania.

While he wrote and directed "Being Cyrus" himself, directing "Cocktail" was a different experience, considering it was written by someone else.

But it wasn't difficult.

"It was definitely a changed concept of telling someone else's story. Imtiaz had narrated the story, and its screenplay had to be developed. Dinesh and I developed it. That's when I started making all the moments of the film as mine, I started drafting scenes and characters.

"I pretty much stuck to the story that I was given; I did not change the story. As soon as I made it as my film, the strangeness went away," he added.

"Cocktail" will hit screens Friday. Click the Movie button below for more info:
Cocktail