Abhay dissuaded from working with Anurag

Abhay Deol talks about his association with the filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in the making of the Hindi movie Dev D. He also tells that the though he liked the movie No Smoking it still remains to be a mystery.

Abhay, did it help the film that two unconventional men like you and Anurag Kashyap came together?
I suppose coming together of two unconventional personalities worked in a positive way for the film. We are two very different people and it went in our favor. We both tend to go into different arenas and with Dev D, we had all the fun exploring stuff that wasn't brought to screen before.

Weren't you apprehensive though about working with Anurag since his No Smoking was panned by most?
I wasn't but then there were people around me who dissuaded me from working with Anurag. My question to them was, 'How could I be showing my back to a film maker when I myself had a few unsuccessful films behind me. It is a mutual thing for me to be a part of a project - people should have liked my work and I should have liked theirs. We both should be really kicked about working with each other. I wanted to work with Anurag and I am sure he too wanted to work with
me; so here we are with Dev D.

But tell me honestly, did you like his No Smoking?
I liked No Smoking though let me confess that at the end of the film, the payback wasn't too satisfying. I was like 'What was it all about?' It was a mystery for me and didn't get what it was in the end. Still, to give Anurag credit, his craft was great and he understood the film medium quite well. It's just that the film was all too abstract for the regular audience.