I hope to see Boman with me on-screen again: Amitabh Bachchan

Mumbai, Jan 24 (IANS) Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who has worked with Boman Irani in "Lakshya", "Waqt - The Race Against Time and "Bhootnath Returns", says he would love to collaborate with him on-screen again.

Amitabh spoke at the launch of Boman's production house Irani MovieTone here on Thursday. He said it takes guts for an actor to start his own production house.

"There are very few among us who are actually brave enough to start something like this that Boman has. I congratulate Boman and to this wonderful company that he has launched. May this ever succeed and may this produce many more writers that we so desperately need.

"I hope to see Boman with me on-screen again, but for God sake, I hope that he will not upstage me again," Big B said.

The veteran actor stressed on the importance of a writer.

"I have always believed that a writer is the most important person in a project. They conceive the story, they write the screenplay," he said, and praised Boman for recognising the importance of writers in the filmmaking process.

"Writers conceive the artistes in terms of how they will speak and what they will wear, where they will go, how they will perform and what dialogue they will say... It is all done by a writer. It's a great moment that Boman has recognised a very important aspect of filmmaking and I congratulate him for that, Big B added.

Boman invited Alexander Dinelaris, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Alejandro G Inarritu's "Birdman", for a day-long screenwriting workshop.

Asked whether he will now concentrate on his production house over acting, Boman said: "I will always be an actor. It is just that I have found a new craft... writing. Ever since I was a kid, I used to write, but I was writing badly."

Talking about Dinelaris' screenwriting workshop, Boman said: "Over the years, I decided to learn the craft by reading books and I met Alex in New York. He is like my brother. We discussed my script and he encouraged me.

"When I met Alex and his friends, I learnt so much. It is important that we share someone of his craft, intelligence and simplicity here. I am glad he agreed to come here."

Boman also said that he has written a script himself and that it will hopefully go on the floors soon.

"At the moment, we are putting our name out there. We have Alex to help young writers. The first production hopefully is the one that I have written, but if something else comes, then (we'll focus on) that. The idea is to develop good stories and if they are on the page, we will have good cinema on-screen."

Boman has frequently collaborated with filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani in films like the "Munna Bhai" series, "3 Idiots", "PK" and most recently in "Sanju".

The actor considers Hirani to be a "great influence" on his growth as an actor. However, he denied commenting on an allegation of sexual misconduct against Hirani.