Actress Divya Khosla Kumar says her directorial debut 'Yaariyan' gave her a creative satisfaction, which she always missed as a performer.

The actress, who is married to producer Bhushan Kumar, was last seen in 2004 multi-starrer film 'Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo'. "When I was acting, I did not have any directorial plans in my mind then. But I did not enjoy acting as much as directing.

Creatively it is more satisfying for me now because as an actor everything is in the hands of the director and you do not have much say in it," Divya told PTI in an interview. "Through direction I am completely in-charge of everything. It gave me a lot of high as it has allowed me to channelise all my talent.

I am very satisfied right now," she added. The actress said her youth-centric film needed her to cast fresh faces as she could not find any suitable talent in Bollywood which could do justice to the demands of the script.

"When I started the casting two-three years back, there were no fresh faces in the Bollywood like it is now. So I did not approach any actors in the industry as it would not have made sense because the script demanded 20-year-old actors," she said. "Normally the casting looks so fake in Bollywood that even the audience feel surprised to see that. But with the appropriate casting the movie looks refreshing. It took a lot of time to find them. I conducted workshops to make them look seasoned enough for the screen," she added.

'Yaariyan' is set to hit theatres in January. Even though she is the wife of T-Series managing director, it was not easy for her to come this far as she had to prove her production and directorial skills to her husband.

"Although Bhushan is my husband I had to prove myself to him and assure him that I can handle this responsibility. He was not confident initially. But then I started producing a lot of music videos which later went on to become a hit.

That's when my husband became confident that I would be able to deliver," she said. Divya feels it is not easy for a woman to make it big as a director in the male-dominated profession.

"Direction is not easy because I was handling the direction, the production on the set, which is a man's job. Usually male directors have to use foul language to get the job done. But I never came down to that level as being a women I wanted to keep my respectability intact," she said.

"I think aspiring female directors feel conscious about coming down to that level. But if you are strong you can definitely achieve it without doing all that. If my movie becomes a hit, they might get motivated by my journey," she added.


As a director, the actress wants to show versatility in her movies and experiment with different genres. Divya is also open to acting if it excites her. "I never said no to acting projects. If there is something that really excites me I would not mind.

If you ask me to act in my own direction then it is impossible because it is not easy," she said. The actress said 'Yaariyan' is the first ever movie to be shot in Sikkim. "Yaariyan is first ever Hindi film to be shot in Sikkim.

I have exposed Sikkim and North of it, which was the China Border in the film. It was difficult shooting there as it was snowing heavily. But the hospitality of the people touched my heart," she said.

"I took the responsibility to show the undiscovered places of India, because our country is so beautiful and normally filmmakers go abroad for filming. I thought Why to go abroad when we have so much here," she added.