Akbar Khan tells Jyothi Venkatesh when he meets him by the swimming pool over chilled beer a few hours before his film Taj Mahal was shown at the IFFI Goa.

Tell us about your film Taj Mahal?
My film is the costliest historical made in India till date. It cost me a whopping ten million dollars. It brings about the real historical aspect of the politics of the time. It is a total historical documentation presented as a drama.

What prompted you to make a film on Taj Mahal?
Way back in 1994 when I was making the serial Akbar The Great for the national television, I had gone on location hunting to Agra. When I had a look at the Taj I was awe struck. When I was narrated the story of the Taj, it brought tears to my eyes.

What were the problems that you had to surmount while making the film?
It took me a year and a half to write the screenplay for my film with Professor Fatima Meer who is a sweet young girl of only 86. (Laughs). Fatima is a contemporary of Nelson Mandela. She stays in South Africa and is a great lover of Indian history

Was casting the actors easy?
Casting the actors was quite tough because I wanted not stars but actors who suited their parts to the T. I decided to fight the star system because none of the stars had the charisma or the personality or the aura to ride like a royal prince in my film.

I chose Kabir Bedi to play the senior Shah Jehan and Zulfi Syed to play the junior. Manisha Koirala has played the role of Jahan Ara the daughter of Shah Jehan. She has played for the first time in her career a role which is not the romantic lead.

Why did you withdraw your film from all the theatres when it was released three years ago?
I decided to withdraw my film because Subhash Ghai who was the distributor of my film sabotaged my film by adopting a wrong strategy. I was not happy with the way my film was exploited.

I regret having trusted him to exploit my film passionately.I will now re-release the film in India once again all over after re-editing it after I exploit it all over the world.

I am happy with the response I received for my film at the IFFI as well as Dubai International Film Festival, Damascus International Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival and Abu Dhabi International Film Festival recently. I will be releasing my film in Russia too by February next year.

What are your plans now?
I am planning to launch a big historical film called Genghis Khan shortly. I may also launch a quickie called Taxi Driver before I am able to complete Genghis Khan. I have yet to finalise the cast and credits of both the film.

I may or may not act in the film because right now I am quite comfortable as a director and am acting in only one film- Faraar in which I am playing the smart and suave conman Charles Sobhraj