00:00In fact, this film actually was made to be able to talk about many, many things.
00:05And financial independence is certainly one of the most important ones.
00:11I did not expect such a sweet movie from you, Kiran.
00:15I always thought you're a bit girl-interrupted.
00:17I kind of didn't think that I had a comedy in me, myself.
00:21Though, you know, when I was young, I used to be called a clown in school.
00:24And over time, you know, I thought I was, that was too silly.
00:27I was a serious person. I was a serious artist.
00:30And, you know, my first film, of course, was very personal, very big reflection of who I am
00:37and my voice as a filmmaker and all the rest of it.
00:40But I think, you know, the intervening decade plus, I've done quite a bit of growing up.
00:47And honestly, when this script was sort of the story I heard from Aamir, I just loved it.
00:54At that point, it was not a comedy. It was actually a drama, you know,
00:58and much more serious and much more realistic.
01:01But I somehow felt like I wanted to do it in a way that was funny and yet emotional
01:10and, you know, kind of ticked lots of little boxes for me.
01:15So, yeah, I hope it's a good surprise for people.
01:19How do you deal with it in a, in almost like a satirical way, perhaps, and then still strike home?
01:26Makings of the story were already there in the script which we got from Biplab Goswami.
01:32The arcs were more or less there. But the actual journey, I wanted to make less direct, you know.
01:40I wanted to use this suspense and, you know, situational humour to keep you guessing up until the end.
01:48Because I feel a lot of these things that we're talking about in this film have been said before.
01:53Everybody knows. These are not familiar issues, unfamiliar issues.
01:58They are actually things that most people, many people would have experienced even, you know, if not this situation.
02:03But some, some of these, you know, kind of perceptions, people have encountered.
02:09But I knew that they could be still made fresh if that journey was, was fun.
02:16And we could take everybody along on this little adventure.
02:19It was actually Sneha Desai who brought the humour and this story to life with her screenplay.
02:25And Divya Nidhi Sharma who came on to write the character of whom everybody seems to love when they watch it,
02:33the character of the Inspector Manohar, played by Ravi Kishan.
02:37With the help of really great writers, you know, we were able to find that little sort of sweet spot
02:44between it being not dark comedy and not full satire, but also emotional, also humorous and also a little bit suspenseful.
02:55There's so many issues. There's about the woman, the kind of like she's repressed anyway,
03:00but how they normalize it in their homes, how they lack friendship, there's no sisterhood, etc.
03:05There's a lot of issues there. So how difficult was it to pack it all in?
03:08When we had the original story draft from Bipla, the broad story, like I said, was there.
03:13A lot of these things I felt could be woven into the story quite seamlessly
03:18because at the end of the day, it wasn't really about tick marking, you know, various things that we wanted to address.
03:25Working them quite subtly into story was Sneha's, actually, artistry.
03:33But this was something that I knew I wanted to do because otherwise, that's why I love the story
03:38because it offered the opportunity to speak about so many things
03:43and open up these conversations about issues at different ages as well.
03:47Older women, younger women, you know, not very macho men, you know,
03:53so how do you make the soft man a hero?
03:58You know, he's very heroic while he's also exceedingly emotional.
04:03So all of these things that I felt were important or could easily be done,
04:09we should attempt to do.
04:12The character that I kind of, in a sense, had a hand in creating was Manju
04:16because I really felt like it was important to create a woman
04:20who could, you know, stand for, in some ways, all the things that I believe in
04:26and also, you know, do things on her own terms but be very accepted within her society.
04:31So she becomes a symbol or a, you know, like in some way a mascot
04:36of a woman being able to be happy and independent at the same time, you know.
04:40She wasn't there in the original script.
04:42Really?
04:43So she's a character that we created, yeah.
04:45How difficult was that, like, to sensitively have both gender roles represented well?
04:51I think it's exceedingly important because often when we're discussing films
04:57that talk about women's lives or women's struggles,
05:00we tend to forget that we don't have enough representation of the wide variety of men
05:07that we possibly all have encountered in our lives.
05:09They exist, you know, but there is an idealized man
05:13just as there is a possibly idealized or sexualized woman.
05:17In the same way, we have these clichéd men that keep appearing in all films, you know,
05:24and our heroes are always meant to be the kind who will protect or be the best warrior, you know.
05:32It's kind of important to break those stereotypes, I think,
05:37and I wanted to do that with all the men.
05:40This film did give us the space to create a much more rich kind of embodiment of both men and women.
05:47We were casting during the second lockdown, so in 2021,
05:51and these tapes were coming to us and I didn't know anything about,
05:55I got the name Nitanshi and I got this test and she was outstanding in the test.
06:00She was just so good and once we got it, we were like, okay, let's see what she's about
06:05and like, is she on the internet?
06:07So, it wasn't that I even knew who she was before I saw her test.
06:12And then when we went online, at that point in 2021, she had two and a half million followers
06:19and we were like, what? This child, she was actually really young.
06:23She was 14 then.
06:25She has two million followers.
06:27So, I had no idea honestly, because I had not seen her work in television
06:32or she's done a lot of roles as a child actor and that's why she's an influencer later.
06:38She was an actor on TV, though we are quick to judge influencers.
06:43Because I suppose they bring something to their followers that everybody looks forward to
06:52and in some way is entertained by and enjoys.
06:56But I had kind of cast her before I knew that she was an entertainer, was an influencer
07:01and I was like, amazing because nobody's going to recognize her.
07:04Nobody's going to even know that it's her.
07:06Because this role was so different than anything that she's been part of in the past.
07:13And she's extremely talented.
07:16I mean, she has a huge, I think a very, very bright future.
07:20All three of them would hopefully go on to do better and better work
07:25because they're not just artistically, creatively very, very talented and driven
07:32but also they have a certain authentic, genuine quality to them
07:37that they haven't been hugely, if you meet them, they're not hugely influenced by their, you know,
07:45I don't know, the fact that they're in the film industry and they're supposed to be, you know,
07:49there's one thing about being glamorous for your feed but actually, you know,
07:55being someone who's interested in their craft, interested in their stories, you know,
08:00also very real is what I really like about the three of them.
08:05Was that the biggest gamble you have taken?
08:07You know that it's not their names that are going to bring people into it, it's purely content.
08:11I could not have done it if Aamir had not supported me because as a producer, it's his call, you know,
08:17he's putting in the money, he's supporting this with his name.
08:21So, the fact that he was very much on board when I said I wanted to go with Fresh Faces,
08:27he said, yeah, absolutely go for it.
08:29It's really because I have him, you know, backing this film that I was able to do it.
08:35Aamir kind of calculates based on the story.
08:38I don't think there are very many producers who do that where he sees the value in the story
08:43and he feels if you do it within a certain budget, we can take the risk.
08:48You know, as a producer, he's willing to take the risk.
08:50There's one bit where you tell women have to be financially independent no matter what.
08:54I think that is one thing that is even also, we live in woke times, right Kiran?
08:58So, every, the messaging is so clear. There's always we have to be woke.
09:02Did you have that pressure as well?
09:04In fact, this film actually was made to be able to talk about many, many things
09:09and financial independence is certainly one of the most important ones.
09:13I think, you know, I feel that would be an ideal for every woman to be financially independent
09:21but also the play on Laapata, I mean, you know, this isn't really a,
09:25this film is not about ghoonghats, it's not about, you know, actually women getting swapped.
09:30It's about women finding their space, wherever, whatever circumstances they are in
09:35and fighting for their space, fighting to find their voices and having their voices heard.
09:41So, you know, this film was made entirely for this.
09:45So, it wasn't a struggle.
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