Lust Stories 2 Exclusive! Ashi Dua: If you fall for the trap of following trends, you cannot do what you really want to do

Back in 2018, the Indian viewers were not ready for what they saw in Lust Stories. Four filmmakers – Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Zoya Akhtar – came together for an anthology which set the trend. Five years later, the sequel of the film – Lust Stories 2 – is here. Producer Ashi Dua talks to OTTplay about the transformation, bringing Kajol on board and how she generally spent her time in the Hindi film industry since the age of 22.

Excerpts from the interview…

You entered the industry with Bombay Talkies, which was first of its kind. Ever since, you have been associated with Lust Stories, Ghost Stories and now Lust Stories 2. Take me through the journey from Bombay Talkies to Lust Stories 2, from your perspective.

I never moved to Mumbai to become a producer. Nobody does that. From the outside, in your head, a producer's job is to only put the money, right? Only when I moved to Mumbai, I realised that it is not the producer's job to put the money. You have the studios and financers for that. The producer typically put the project together - from the script to director, actor and everything. Once I figured and understood that part of it, then I realised that I can be a producer.

My first project was with Viacom 18. Bombay Talkies happened when Hindi cinema was completing 100 years. That is when I came up with the idea that we should have four filmmakers make a film that is dedicated to the Indian cinema. Hence, Bombay Talkies happened and at that point, the jury loved it and we premiered at the Cannes Film Festival too. So on and so forth, the journey began.

In 2018, when Lust Stories came, that time the OTT industry had just started. We were the only to show a film which was just out there. At that time, Lust Stories got so much love. We got nominated for the Emmys.

That empowered us and we made Lust Stories 2. Here we are in 2023 with the second part of the anthology.

Lust Stories 2 is about challenging social taboos surrounding female desires. Of course, female desires were touched upon the last time but things seem to get more serious this time...

The topic actually is lust. When four filmmakers come, they have their take and story to put out on lust. That is what has happened. It is what happened in the first one.

It was a woman's story which was helmed by Zoya (Akhtar), Radhika Apte with Anurag (Kashyap), Manisha Koirala with Dibakar (Banerjee) and Kiara (Advani) with Karan (Johar). It was their take on a lust story.

Similarly, on this one, there are four directors and it is their take on the story they want to tell through the theme of lust. That is what it really is.

I think Kajol came as a huge surprise for everyone because she doesn't usually associate herself with bold subjects in this sense. Was it easy convincing her to join the project?

People were surprised that Kajol is in Lust Stories. Once you see the film, you'll realise it's very different from what she's done because it's very different from anything she's done before. It was Amit Sharma actually who led the thought of Kajol. He said that she might not really do it but wanted to give it a shot. When he narrated the script to her, she immediately fell in love with it and said 'I'm on.' So, credit to Amit and the script he's written so beautifully. We went to her with zero expectations and she immediately fell in love with the script and wanted to do it.

I remember when Lust Stories came out, because people are conditioned in such a way, they would think this is almost p*rn. Of course, when they saw it, it was something totally different. Do you believe the message that film wanted to convey - about female desire - reached people?

Lust is not just about physical aspect of lust. It can be in your mind. You can be cheating on someone mentally. It is conversational with films. It is the showing of what the act is all about. It's more about generating conversation about lust, which is a taboo that people don't really talk and are uncomfortable about. It's not so much about showing it.

Of course, if the script demands and there is a place where it needs to be shown, it will be shown. We don't want to do it for the sake of it. It is more of a conversation starter. What does lust mean to you? For some people, it could be as simple as freedom.

Yes the name is Lust Stories but it is not about watching people lust over each other. There are different kinds of lust and how you perceive the act.

What were the responses back then?

I have to be very honest. The first one took us by surprise for the amount of love it got and how Kiara's scene went viral. It got so much love we ourselves were obviously beautifully surprised. To top it all, we got an Emmy nomination. It was just one surprise after the other.

We never set out to make this film with the agenda of 'oh my god we're gonna start a conversation.' Everybody was just authentic to what they wanted to make and they made a very honest film. Then it ended up doing what it did.

You worked with Anurag Kashyap on Dev D before Bombay Talkies happened, which had Karan Johar as one of the directors. They both even have a drastically different sense of cinema.

It was one of the first gigs I did. I was very young when Anurag was making Dev D and producing it. I met him through a workshop we had conducted. He asked me to work on the film.

The process of working on the film and whatever learning I got from being around Anurag, is when I understood that I was capable of trying to produce a film.

For an anthology, the idea is to get people drastically different from each other. It's like a buffet. You go to a buffet and have similar type of things, then you wouldn't have fun. So, the idea is that all four have to be so different from each other that audiences have all the four worlds to explore through you. That would be ideal. We did not want similar school of filmmaking to be a part of the anthology. We wanted everybody to be as different from each other as possible.

Seeing them both at their craft so early on, do you think that helped you in a sense that you understood what kind of films work better and how do you work on it to make it better?

Till today, I don't think it's very hard for anyone to know what kind of films work and don't work. Sometimes when you least expect it, it works and sometimes when you put all your expectations into something, it doesn't work.

My whole learning through the little journey I've had in the movies is to just be honest with what you want to make and the story you want to tell. The minute one film works, everybody wants to make that kind of film again. The circle repeats and they keep falling for that trap. If you do that, you'll never be able to do what you really want to do.

I believe that you just have to be very authentic to what you want to make and if it is actually good, people will like it. There's no assurity or way of knowing what will and will not work. You just have to go with your instinct, do your best, tell the story you want to tell and then leave it to the audiences.

Is it tough, being a female producer in the industry?

Being a film producer is very tough for many reasons. Eventually, it's a thankless job. You are literally the bad cop on the sets. You're doing everything and then when the film works well, everybody praises the director or actor. Being a producer is not an easy job but yes, it's a very gratifying job. There's one small seed you start with. You get the script and then get the screenplay, actors, director and money to shoot it. The gratification you get at the end, seeing the final product, is irreplaceable. That is magical. Even though it is a very tough and thankless job, it's still a very gratifying one.

Many have spoken about inequality in terms of pay disparity. Is there anything like that, that you faced?

Of course there is pay disparity but you have to earn it for yourself. In the sense, that if a woman can get the numbers like the man does, then she should get paid as much as the man. It's all math and business at the end of the day, right? If someone is getting you the numbers, then they deserve to get paid as much as their male counterparts. But if the male counterpart is getting bigger numbers, then I understand where it's coming from.

The disparity comes when both are getting you the numbers but the male is getting the money and the female is not. That is disparity. But if the female or even for that matter, the male is not bringing in the numbers, then you get paid for what you're able to achieve for the whole business part of it. That is how it should even be.

Of course, there is disparity. There's no two ways about that. Everybody knows that but it's also coming from a place of business and finance.

You started bankrolling films at the mere age of 22. After spending so many years in the industry, what is the one advice you would give others who aspire to be like you?

What I have learned through this is to not let anybody hold you back. If I had been held back, since I'm not from the industry and not from even Mumbai, I would've never been able to do this. So, if you really want to do something, give it your best and hope for it. Don't let people tell you what you can and cannot do. You keep hearing that from people when you move to a new city to start a new profession, right? If you believe you can do it, just go for it. Then it's your own hardwork and destiny.

What's next for you?

I'm an entrepreneur. I have a fashion company called Dhoom Dhaam. I have two babies, so I'm a full-time mother as well. It's already a lot on my plate for the next five years.

I have two web series which I shot last year. They would come out end of the year. I'm not able to say the name of the platform but it is one of the leading platforms. Apart from that, I'm in the middle of closing two scripts which I have been working on. We should be going into casting and then production soon.