Zoya Akhtar is beaming with pride, as her film Gully Boy is India’s official entry to the Academy Awards. The outstanding filmmaker, who recently attended a press conference of MAMI film festival, had an interesting response to a question about whether the film would have received the same response if it didn’t have Alia and Ranveer Singh in it.

Zoya said: “I really can’t see the future, so the answer is ‘I don’t know’. But having said that, I didn’t mean that you don’t need actors or stars. It really depends on what you are doing, your budget, who you are selling to, and where they fit in. I think any story, whether big or small budget, with stars or without, needs a strong idea or a strong story.”

“Today, it’s not about stars; you don’t need a camera, you can make a film on a phone. I mean the whole game has changed. It is not just about stars anymore,” she concluded.