I am a voyeur : Ekta Kapoor

She says she prefers watching American television. True Blood and Brothers and Sisters are shows she loves watching to unwind. Yes, she does watch her shows “because I have to” but otherwise, Ekta Kapoor would rather look west.

She’s given television many a love jodi. From Anurag-Prerna to Sujal-Kashish, from Heer-Prem to Anurag-Taani, Ekta has given them all. Little wonder then she says “love stories are my forte” and so she brings yet another love story, this time on Star One, called Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani. She calls it a raw, edgy love story, which will go on air on October 18.

The show is rumoured to have been inspired by Stephanie Meyer’s popular ‘Twilight Series’. The story is about two central characters, Peeya and Abhay. While Peeya is a simple and straightforward, Abhay has a dark, mysterious side to him. The show, as Ekta put it, has a supernatural element to it.

TellyChakkar caught up with Ekta who breezed through our questions.

You are known for your love stories, which has been you favourite?
Undoubtedly, it has to be Kausautii Zindagi Kay. It was a personal journey for me when I made it. In movies, it is As Good As It Gets, it’s a funny little love story. I also like the original Love Story.

You said Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani is an edgy love story, were there any difficulties you encountered during its making?
My God! Only I know what I have gone through. It’s easy to say you are making a show which is different and in India unlike other countries there are limitations. We have limited ideas about supernatural elements. We have written it over five times. We kept rewriting the story till we were completely satisfied with it.

How would you define ‘edgy’?
I can’t! The guy in my story is imperfect. He is different from what you can imagine. How can you fall in love with someone so wrong? The edginess comes from the fact that he is different.

But then no one is perfect?
He is not imperfect, he is so wrong. It’s like falling in love with a villain.

For someone who has an eye for talent, you faced a lot of difficulties while casting for the show, right?
Yes, that’s because I didn’t get the right faces. Even if I did, they were bad actors I mean I don’t have the time to now to teach them acting and then reshoot. Every time we launched a show we spent 10 times the money in grooming the actors but this time because we had deadlines it was tough. So this time we decided if we don’t find a fresh face we would stick to a closely fresh face and Sukriti (Khandpal) and Vivian (D’Sena) came closest to the characters they are playing of Peeya and Abhay.

You often say that your stories are more or less inspired from incidents in your life, what has been the inspiration for this show?
Nothing that happened in my life, which is why I took so long to write this show. (Laughs) this time it was tough to write. American shows have a lot of liberty, I researched from those shows. It was more liked I learned, unlearned, learned some more. The fact that a few of the American shows managed to bring out the fiction and supernatural element without showing horror was inspiration of sorts.

You think the story was better suited for a feature film?
I think it is fun doing it on TV. I wanted to do it for the small screen.

Everyone is talking about Bigg Boss, KBC and Master Chef, what are you excited about?
I quite like Bigg Boss. I liked the 14 contestants (laughs).

If you were offered Bigg Boss would you be a part of it?
You think I am nuts! I am a voyeur; I made LSD, cameras on me 24x7, nope, not my scene!

Shows these days don’t run for years, they get pulled off sometimes within three months, do you think it’s because the audiences have become smarter?
Engaging the audience of today for a long time is impossible because when TV happened, satellite TV, it was fresh. Now most of us make the same thing, for the masses. Now after so many years, the newness is lost. I don’t see fiction taking a turn till urban fiction takes over, when digital takes over, TV will be redefined then.

Do you think reality shows has taken over fiction in a big way?
I think reality shows is a phase, they will always be there. However they can never take the place of fiction shows that give high ratings at the cheapest cost. Both serve different purposes.