Karan Johar is backing Disney+ Hotstar’s latest web series, Showtime, starring Emraan Hashmi, Mahima Makwana with Mouni Roy, Rajeev Khandelwal, Shriya Saran and many others. The series explores the inner workings of the film industry, giving the audience and insiders view of the underbelly of Bollywood. A video released by Karan Johar to promote the show added fuel to the speculation that it is probably based on his life.

Mid-day.com exclusively spoke to the cast members and the showrunner Mihir Desai recently about the themes the series explores. Excerpts from a chat: