00:00I think when you have someone who has experienced and with such a vast amount of knowledge like Kunal sir,
00:12number one you need to be a great student, not only of Kunal sir but of cinema.
00:19You need to understand why you do what you do. Kunal sir was the best captain we could have asked for.
00:26He was a friend when he needed to be, he was a parent when he needed to be, he was the director of the film all the time.
00:36He just gave us so much love and he made us feel so safe.
00:40When we were around him, we used to feel that nothing can go wrong.
00:46He gave us so much love.
00:49We had only one job, to marry our heart and our mind with his heart and his mind for the film.
00:56We were actually, our mind and hearts were married to his heart and mind.
01:00We told him that sir, we are blank slates, whatever you want to write, write it on our board and we will do it.
01:07Our job was to be receptive, to have a long term affair with the script, to have a loyal affair
01:18and we just stay in the moment.
01:21We don't have to think too far ahead or too far back.
01:23Just be there and just be in love with the characters, be in love with the script
01:27and just be madly in love like we still are and will always be with his mind, body and soul.
01:35So this is my first experience as an actor in general.
01:40Given that I was working with Kunal and the fact that I was about to step onto my first movie set,
01:47never having anticipated that I would be an actor in my life, I needed a lot of preparation.
01:53We got lucky because even with what type of preparation to do, I think you guided us in a very structured manner.
02:03Because every day he would say, okay Kaveri, today I need you to do these scenes,
02:09I need you all to do a reading and I need you all to send it to me by tonight.
02:12And every day we had kind of a structured routine of what scenes we had to learn,
02:18which ones we had to read, record and send.
02:21So I knew nothing about acting and I knew nothing about preparing for acting.
02:29So luckily I had a very good teacher on both those things.
02:34So the preparation was made very smooth because with this rawness that he wanted also comes a lack of experience.
02:49And so he knew how to handle both of those.
02:53I think the interesting thing was that when I gave them homework,
03:01that you read this scene for tomorrow, we are doing these two scenes tomorrow, so prepare these two scenes well.
03:07Sometimes I would see it at night and sometimes I would not see it.
03:12Because I knew that was a very simple scene and I didn't want to see it.
03:16There was a reason for that because I wanted them to come on set and surprise me.
03:21Had I seen it and then they would do the same thing on set again, then I would not be so surprised.
03:25I would be like, what is this? I saw this last night.
03:28So I would sometimes see that and then tell them, no, no, no, don't do it like this.
03:32This is a little over or reduce this a little. Don't go so far.
03:35Just give me a quiet expression. Don't do anything. You are overdoing it or you are underplaying it.
03:41So I would, you know, sometimes or sometimes they would come and ask me, what should I do here?
03:46I don't know. I would say, don't worry, here you have to do nothing.
03:49Here the background music will take over. You just stand there.
03:52Just eat an ice cream. Just walk over here. Don't act over here. Just walk.
03:56Just walk. Be a little sad. That's it.
03:59Don't try to be too sad or else it will look like that.
04:02You know, so sometimes I had to just guide them in the right direction.
04:06I didn't need to show them how to act. I had to just put them in the right direction, which was lovely.
04:10No, I think, I think this is mostly because I never saw myself being an actor.
04:22I never felt the pressure of that legacy.
04:26And also because for my parents, I don't think, especially my dad, I don't think he saw it as, oh, my, I'm a director.
04:35Now my daughter is becoming an actor.
04:37It was just like my daughter is exploring this new phase of her life.
04:41Let's give her some space and freedom to do it.
04:44So there was no pressure. I really, I really, like, enjoyed the whole process of discovering myself as an actor.
04:54And I think where I felt pressure more was in the music field, because I've grown up as a musician.
05:04My mom is a musician. So sometimes I would put a lot of pressure on myself as a singer because I spent years training to be a singer-songwriter.
05:15So there, if I fall short, I tend to be kind of hard on myself.
05:20But with acting, it was sort of like an experiment for me in this phase.
05:26So I was, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't feel any, like, family pressure because of the way I was approaching it.
05:37And because also of the way that they were kind of like, they would just, like, stand back and letting me explore this new phase of my life.
05:46Does that make sense?
05:49Honestly, because my family has done very notable work and fantastic work.
05:57I decided very young when I was a theatre actor that I'm never going to take the pressure.
06:05I just think, I feel very responsible because they've done such great work.
06:10And I want to choose the right work.
06:12I want to choose to work with the right people.
06:15More important than people who are really good at what they do is I want to work with good human beings.
06:22I want to collaborate with kind people.
06:25I want to collaborate with people who have the best interest of the world in mind.
06:31They could be the finest filmmakers in the world.
06:34But if they're not nice people, then spending one year with them would not be a very joyous experience.
06:40So, it's very important for me to work with good people.
06:44Because my family has always told me this.
06:46Kunal sir also told me this the other day.
06:48Yashji told you this, right?
06:50Yes.
06:51That a person...
06:52A person can be 19-20 in talent, but not in humanity.
06:57If a person is 19-20, then it won't be fun to work.
07:00So, I feel responsible to work with the right kind of people, to work on the right kinds of subjects.
07:06So that I can make my family, my close people, my ancestors proud.
07:11So, it's a responsibility.
07:12Pressure is zero.
07:13It's very difficult to work with pressure.
07:16If I think everyday, I hope Mr. Sehgal or Mr. Amrish Puri, my grandfather, I can live up to him.
07:25They're my gods.
07:26You don't compare yourself with your gods.
07:28You pray to them.
07:29You want to make them proud.
07:30So, similarly, I just want to make them proud.
07:33And I want to have my unique path.
07:35If I can do that, if I can be original, if I can be authentic to who I am, they'll be very proud of me.
07:47Technology has helped in every which way.
07:49Because you can, on set, you can check the edit if you want to.
07:53Edit, you can check...
07:54Okay, this is a very outdated technology now.
07:57You can check your VFX on sets nowadays.
07:59I mean, your visual effects will also show you roughly that this is how it's going to be.
08:03You'll also get that output.
08:05So, I think technology must be embraced as much as you can.
08:09And use technology to better your film and make your life easier.
08:13Rather than, you know, not use technology and run away from it.
08:17Technology is the best thing to have happened to filmmaking.
Comments