Ahead of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar's release, director Neeraj Pandey on experimenting with genres, working with Jimmy Sheirgill

While the rigours of storytelling for the screen are the same as they were when he began 16 years ago, keeping up with rapidly changing technology poses new challenges, says Neeraj Pandey. Pic/Anurag Ahire

More numbers on the speed dial, you mean?" quips Neeraj Pandey when we ask him about the things that have changed in his approach to filmmaking in the 16 years since he burst onto the filmmaking scene with A Wednesday! The rigours of storytelling remain unchanged, he says, just as the pressures of dealing with producers, studios and networks persist. "The ability to grasp things might have gotten sharper, but now you've got new tech that throws new challenges. You live and learn every single day on the set, and you just hope you're always catching up. The tech is growing faster than you can imagine, and so that part of learning is pretty complicated and you want to stay up to speed," he says.

Pandey's new film Sikandar Ka Muqaddar marks a return for the writer-director to the thriller, a genre he has often experimented with in the past through projects such as Special 26, Baby, Special Ops and The Freelancer. "I consider myself pretty genre-agnostic though," he refutes. "It's mostly about getting a story you're excited about."

A still from the film

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, which premieres on Netflix on November 29, builds around a diamond heist. "Sikandar [Avinash Tiwary] becomes a suspect and cop Jaswinder [Jimmy] shapes Sikandar's destiny throughout the film, over the course of 15 years," Pandey tells us. Hence the title. Is there a reference to the Prakash Mehra-directed Amitabh Bachchan film it plays on? "Nothing," shrugs the director, "apart from the fact that I grew up on that film and my entire generation loved its music."

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar was shot over a period of three months in Mumbai, Karjat, Pune, Lonavala, Agra and Abu Dhabi. While there are usually different trials and challenges to negotiate on a set, the weather and light conditions proved tricky, the director tells us. Since they wanted to finish filming by April to shoot with a certain kind of light and weather, they were racing against time, he adds.

The new film also marks another collaboration between Pandey and Jimmy Sheirgill after A Wednesday!, Special 26 and Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha. His "longevity" distinguishes him, says Pandey of the actor who began his film career in 1996 with the Gulzar-directed Maachis. "He's been around and not changed much as a person. He's pretty much the same guy he was when I was filming A Wednesday! in 2007 - at least with me," he says. At the same time, he has evolved significantly as an actor through the different roles he has done, he points out. "There's a certain amount of stay that has come in. His performance is more nuanced and he's holding on to his pauses way better now."

Besides Sheirgill, Tiwary and Tamannaah Bhatia in lead roles, the ensemble also features actors like Zoya Afroz, Ridhima Pandit and Rajeev Mehta. "As individuals, these actors are chalk and cheese, and so, it gets interesting when you're dealing with them on set," Pandey tells us, explaining how a director must understand the actors' individual processes and ways of interpreting information. "You cannot use the same grammar, the same vocabulary with every actor. With some, like Jimmy who's had this journey with me, I can convey [a lot] without saying too much."