Lawrence D’Souza, the director of Saajan, remembered how Salman Khan once schooled him to make better films.

Film director and cinematographer Lawrence D’Souza recently opened up about the time when he and his producer friend signed Salman Khan for Rs 5000 as a after they watched Maine Pyar Kiya (1989). Talking to Friday Talkies, Lawrence got nostalgic remembering Salman’s early days as an actor, as he recalled how director and producer S Ramanathan signed him for Rs 5000. But the film they signed him for ultimately never got made. The same cycle happened when Salman became a bigger star, and after a point, even he began to wonder why the producer was just handing him signing amounts without actually working with him.

He said, “We went for the trial of Maine Pyar Kiya at Rajshri; me, S Ramanathan and Prayagraj, they had kept a special trial (screening) for the three of us. When I watched the film, initially mazaa nahi aaya (I didn’t enjoy it much), but as the film went on, I started liking him in the movie. After watching the film, S Ramanathan, with whom I was doing a film called Pratiksha, I was the director an cameraman, said, ‘Lawrence, let’s sign Salman, usko bula lo (call him). So I called Salman at his office near Raj Babbar’s office in Juhu. We paid Salman a signing amount of Rs 5,000. S Ramanathan should have started the film, but went quiet after paying him.”

S Ramanathan has made films like Bombay to Goa (1972) and Mahaan (1983), among others. Lawrence said that after losing out on an opportunity to make a film with Salman the first time, Ramanathan then paid the actor Rs 5,00,000 for yet another project, which also didn’t see the light of the day.

“After that Salman delivered a bigger hit, S Ramanathan woke up again. Then we paid Salman Rs 5,0,0000. S Ramanathan went quiet again. After that one more film of Salman was a hit and we called him. Salman then said, ‘What kind of a person is he? He pays me money and then he does nothing!’”

Lawrence then opened up about his 1991 hit Saajan, starring Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt. He shared that while he was paid Rs 8 lakh for helming the film, Salman and Madhuri were paid Rs 11 lakh each and Sanjay was paid Rs 12 lakh.

He shared that when he was making films in the 1980s and 1990’s there was not much money in the industry. Sharing an anecdote about a piece of advice he received from Salman, he said, “I used to do films to help producer friends, some of them were poor, so I wanted to help them and made films with some new actors as well. But Salman once told me, ‘You don’t do all this now. You have made Saajan, now you have to do even better than that.’ I am an emotional person, I wanted to help people, and that’s why I didn’t earn much in this industry.”