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In an August 2018 interview, filmmaker Sriram Raghavan described Andhadhun as a darkly comic thriller built through collaboration, guided by older crime films but not intended to copy them. He also recalled how a stammer shaped his early ambitions to become a journalist—and said it went suddenly while he was making Ek Hasina Thi. His account is personal testimony, not a medical explanation or a general story of treatment.
What Raghavan said about Andhadhun
When Nandini Ramnath interviewed Raghavan for Scroll on August 17, 2018, Andhadhun was still weeks from its then-scheduled October 5 release. Scroll described his fifth feature as a thriller about a blind pianist drawn into a murder. That release date belongs to the contemporary 2018 conversation, not a current announcement. Read the Scroll interview.
A story shaped by several writers
Raghavan said his friend Hemant Rao recommended the short film that became the basis for Andhadhun. He initially wanted Rao to write it, but Rao moved on to direct his own film. Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti and Yogesh Chandekar then contributed to the screenplay. Raghavan said he had written the film a couple of years before the interview and had narrated it to Varun Dhawan alongside Badlapur.
A macabre turn, with a comic edge
Raghavan described the pianist as content with himself and preparing for a competition before meeting two women and being caught up in increasingly strange events. He cited Fargo and its television series as inspirations for the mood, likening the story’s progression to a macabre rabbit hole. That is a description of influence and tone, not a claim that Andhadhun adapts Fargo.
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His short description of filmmaking—“Every movie is a commitment, and you have to be damn sure about it”—captures the seriousness he attached to choosing a project. It is a statement about his own approach, rather than a formula he offered for other filmmakers.
Which older films and filmmakers influenced him?
Raghavan named Hindi filmmaker Vijay Anand, the film Victoria 203, and films by Brij Sadanah among his enthusiasms. He also spoke about Jean-Pierre Melville’s crime films and named John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle as a favorite American film. In his words, “For me, the reference is an invisible guide map for when I am making a movie.”
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He presented those references as a way to orient creative choices, not as blueprints to reproduce. Raghavan acknowledged familiar genre conventions while emphasizing that he tries to find his own route through them. He praised Vijay Anand’s use of film songs, and contrasted the polish he associated with American crime films with what he saw as more individualism in French crime cinema.
Raghavan also recalled Melville saying in another interview that The Asphalt Jungle contained 11 of 12 features of a gangster film. That figure is Raghavan’s recollection of Melville’s comment, not a verified count or an objective measure of the genre.
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Older characters in new settings
Raghavan said older films continue to offer attractive characters, but that he tries to make such characters believable in the settings of his own films. The distinction matters: his interest is in what an older film can suggest, not in transplanting its surface details unchanged.
In a 2019 conversation with The Indian Express, Raghavan recalled watching films from the 1940s onward in Pune theatres as a child. He also voiced concern that some younger assistants had seen little cinema from before Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). These are his personal observations, not representative findings about younger viewers or film crews. Read the Indian Express conversation.
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What Raghavan recalled about his stammer
Raghavan said he hoped to become a journalist but had a “very bad stammer” that made him “very quiet and reserved.” He recalled avoiding particular words in everyday situations: at a restaurant, for instance, he might order idli sambar rather than masala dosa because he found the initial “m” difficult to say.
He said the stammer “went suddenly” while he was making Ek Hasina Thi. His account does not explain why the change happened, and the interviews do not establish a cause, treatment or medical conclusion. It should be understood as his recollection of his own experience, not as a general account of how stammering changes.
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How he moved from journalism toward filmmaking
Raghavan described a gradual path rather than a single planned leap into directing. He left science for economics, tried a trainee-journalist job at Stardust for four months, worked at the trade journal Trade Guide, and later met and assisted director Mukul Anand before applying to the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).
In the 2019 Indian Express conversation, he also said the stammer had made him quiet and, in his view, ill-suited to journalism. His later comment that “it’s always the story which takes primacy” came in a discussion of casting and story choices; it adds context to his filmmaking priorities, but does not erase the uneven route by which he arrived there.
Did Raghavan confirm what happens at the end of Andhadhun?
No single interpretation was confirmed in these interviews. In 2018, Raghavan said both possible readings of the ending could be valid and “proven.” In a 2019 Filmfare interview, he described one reading in which the pianist remains blind and another in which he fabricated events. The Indian Express conversation records his pleasure that viewers had developed many interpretations. The ambiguity, as he presented it, was intentional—not a puzzle with one answer he publicly settled.
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