Mumbai, July 30 : Director David Dhawan, who ruled the Bollywood of the 1990s, has revealed that it was Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt who motivated him to take up direction.

David Dhawan, who is an Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) graduate, went through many courses during his career.

Although he initially thought of becoming an actor, he enrolled in FTII Pune for the course of film editing.

However, it was during the editing of the film 'Naam' when Sanjay told him to explore possibilities as a director.

David, who appeared on the chat show 'The Invincibles', told show host Arbaaz Khan, "'Naam' has another very big thing in my life. I was editing 'Naam', the actor in the film 'Naam' was Sanjay Dutt, and Sanjay used to always be extremely friendly, he would come and watch the rushes and one day he said, 'David yaar tu director Kyun nahi Banta?.'"

"I said, 'Kaun banayega Mujhe director' and he said 'Ban Gaya tu, 3 days ago I signed a film and Tu usko Direct karega', can you believe it?," he added.

At this point in the episode, Arbaaz said, "Kya baat hai! Unbelievable but were you prepared for that when this happened? Were you already talking about it?"

David said, "No nothing."

Arbaaz then said, "So Sanjay Dutt came as a blessing in disguise."

To which David said, "He was like 'Tu Kar na yaar, I will be there'."

/IANS