one of the most confident 21yearolds i have ever seen i never felt that she was a debutante we did a few reading sessions before we began the shoot so it wasnt like directing a debutant and a senior actor but a fresh wellprepared actor and a senior actor so their duet scenes went really smoothhow did alaya f come in the picture sara ali khan was the original choice for the role of saifs daughter right there was a buzz about the reallife papabeti jodi coming together on screenyes sara was there but one fine day i was told that she was not doing the film i dont know what happened between saif who was producing the film the rest of the team and sara however i looked at it very positively alaya was a fresh face there was no baggage to her while saras kedarnath 2018 was set for release she was also shooting for simmba 2018 i am glad that we discovered alaya i was shooting for notebook in srinagar when i asked her to join the team i spent an entire day with her and i could see my character in her personality there are a lot of similarities between the two for example the way they look at relationships in our society divorces and separations are taboo even now but alaya has dealt with it in real life in a mature way her parents actress pooja bedi and businessman farhan furniturewalaare divorced alaya totally fit the bill for me it is because of this change in casting that the film got pushed otherwise i was supposed to work on it before notebookwith jawaani jaaneman releasing today have you started working on your nextcurrently i am developing a story which i want to direct i always wanted to make my directorial debut with a blackandwhite film i had even written the script and was on the lookout for a producer i am going to take that project ahead now seriously it is going to be my next it is based on the partition and i will set it in a black humour zone