00:00Hello, good answer. Hello, company. Welcome to NS. First of all, congratulations for
00:05Bobby and Rishi's love story which is on your side. Thank you so much. I want to start off
00:09with the captain of the ship. When you set out to tell this story, what was it about these two
00:14actors that made you take them and tell your story through them? So I wanted someone very innocent.
00:23I wanted someone real and I wanted some actors who were raw. I didn't want and when I say raw,
00:30I mean raw in a very nice way. And when I say real, I mean where
00:39the face, the body is not very gym made or Botox made. It's all real.
00:44So in every way of these, they tick the box very well and they can act.
01:05And my next question is for both the actors.
01:07Having a director like him, who has such a great body of work, no cinema in and out,
01:14the nuances of it. What were the prerequisites for you as actors?
01:22These should be the minimum profession that we need to take up. Anyone can take the lead.
01:29You want to go first?
01:30I think when you have someone who has experienced and with such a
01:36vast amount of knowledge like Kunal sir, number one, you need to be a great student,
01:42not only of Kunal sir but of cinema. You need to understand why you do what you do.
01:49Kunal sir was the best captain we could have asked for. He was a friend when he needed to be,
01:57he was a parent when he needed to be, he was the director of the film all the time. And
02:03he just gave us so much love and he made us feel so safe.
02:06We were actually, our mind and hearts were married to his heart and mind.
02:27We told him that sir, we are blank slates.
02:37We will do a long term affair with the script, a loyal affair and we just stay in the moment.
02:50Just be there and just be in love with the characters, be in love with the script and
02:54just be madly in love like we still are and will always be with his mind, body and soul.
02:59Yeah.
03:02So this is my first experience as an actor in general. So given that I was working with Kunal
03:11and the fact that I was about to step onto my first movie set, never having anticipated that
03:16I would be an actor in my life, I needed a lot of preparation and we got lucky because even with
03:24what type of preparation to do, I think you guided us in a very structured manner
03:30because every day he would say, okay Kaveri, today I need you to do these scenes. I need
03:36you all to do a reading and I need you all to send it to me by tonight. And every day we had
03:41kind of a structured routine of what scenes we had to learn, which ones we had to read, record
03:47and send. So I knew nothing about acting and I knew nothing about preparing for acting. So luckily
03:58I had a very good teacher on both those things. So yeah, the preparation was made very smooth
04:07because I think he because with this rawness that he wanted also comes a lack of experience
04:16and so he knew how to handle both of those. I think the interesting thing was that
04:25the interesting thing was like when I gave them homework
04:36sometimes I would see it at night and sometimes I would not see it
04:40because I knew that was a very simple scene and I didn't want to see it.
04:43There was a reason for that because I wanted them to come on set
04:47and surprise me. Had I seen it and then they would do the same thing on set again then I'd
04:51be not so surprised. I'd be like, what is this? I saw this last night. So I would sometimes see that
04:57and then tell them, no, no, no, don't do it like this. It's a little over or
05:00reduce this a little. Don't go so far. Just give me a quiet expression.
05:05Don't do anything. You're overdoing it or you're underplaying it. So I would
05:08sometimes or sometimes they'd come and ask me, what should I do here? I don't know.
05:13I'd say, don't worry. Here you have to do nothing. Here the background music will take over.
05:18You just stand there. Just eat an ice cream. Just walk over here. Don't act over here. Just walk.
05:23Just walk. Be a little sad. That's it.
05:30So sometimes I had to just guide them in the right direction. I didn't need to show them
05:34how to act. I had to just put them in the right direction, which was lovely.
05:38And very good thing that you mentioned this. I want to further mention to this that for any
05:44director, for example, like with your experience, you know how cinema works. You've given us
05:49memorable films, memorable characters. But still, how important it is for any director or any
05:54artist for that matter, to explore that unknown space, to not sort of have that sense of control
06:00and be surprised from what's coming next. You have to, I don't, nobody knows anything.
06:06We don't know because every day on set is a new challenge. An actor can ask you the
06:11most simplest of things for which you might not have an answer. You might have the most
06:16difficult thing to express from an actor and he might just do it like this.
06:21And then you're like, okay, I've done this. What else can I do? How can I do this in a different way?
06:27So the fun is not, and sometimes the fun is not what is being said in the lines,
06:32but what's between the lines. The silences, that's where the best performances come. In the silence.
06:44That is acting. Acting is what is happening before and after seeing the lines.
06:52That's important. So I think that you can never plan.
06:55It can't, it can never be planned. And it should not be planned.
07:07So that exploration is filmmaking.
07:12And Kaveri and Varadhan, you have such huge, humongous legacy resting on your shoulder.
07:17Working with him, did you at any point in time have that fear or did you at any time
07:25feel that pressure that you have to live up to that legacy and also
07:28bring up something of my own?
07:33No, I think this is mostly because I never saw myself being an actor.
07:41I never felt the pressure of that legacy. And also because for my parents, I don't think,
07:47especially my dad, I don't think he saw it as, oh, I'm a director and now my daughter is becoming
07:53an actor. It was just like my daughter is exploring this new phase of her life.
07:57Let's give her some space and freedom to do it.
08:01So there was no pressure. I really enjoyed the whole process of discovering myself as an actor.
08:11And I think where I felt pressure more was in the music field because I've grown up as a musician.
08:21My mom is a musician. So sometimes I would put a lot of pressure on myself as a singer
08:28because I spent years training to be a singer-songwriter. So there, if I fall short,
08:35I tend to be kind of hard on myself. But with acting, it was sort of like an experiment for me
08:41in this phase. So I didn't feel any family pressure because of the way I was approaching
08:53it. And because also of the way that they were kind of like, they would just stand back and
08:59letting me explore this new phase of my life. Honestly, because my family has done
09:10very notable work and fantastic work, I decided very young when I was a theatre actor that I'm
09:17never going to take the pressure. Because if you take the pressure, the pressure will come on you.
09:22I just think, I feel very responsible because they've done such great work and I
09:27want to choose the right work. I want to choose to work with the right people. More important than
09:34people who are really good at what they do is, I want to work with good human beings.
09:39I want to collaborate with kind people. I want to collaborate with people
09:43who have the best interest of the world in mind.
09:48They could be the finest filmmakers in the world but if they're not nice people,
09:52then spending one year with them would not be a very joyous experience.
10:09Talent can be 19-20 but not humanity. If a person is 19-20 then it won't be fun to work.
10:16So, I feel responsible to work with the right kind of people, to work on the right kinds of subjects
10:22so that I can make my family, my close people, my ancestors proud. So, responsibility is there,
10:28pressure is zero. It's very difficult to work with pressure. If I think every day,
10:34I hope Saigal Saab or Mr. Amrish Puri, my grandfathers, I can live up to him.
10:42They're my gods. You don't compare yourself with your gods. You pray to them. You want to make
10:46them proud. So, similarly, I just want to make them proud and I want to have my unique path and
10:52if 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.
10:59And weren't there any instances while shooting that something that you did as a part of your
11:03acting like then you thought, okay, I might have done something differently but you decided to
11:08go with the flow as demanded? Actually, Kunal sir is a very collaborative mind.
11:14You know, if Kunal sir likes something and if the actor inside you says,
11:21Kunal sir, please, I want to try one more, he'll always give you that. He'll always give it to you
11:26even though if he's sure, I'm going to use this. But just so that we can sleep well at night
11:32because he understands the actor's mind, I call him Dr. Kunal Kohli because
11:49he knows the anatomy of the human heart. Of course, I'm speaking metaphorically. He knows it
11:56like no one else. But you know, it's very important what he's saying is very important because
12:06sir, I want to do one more and I say, no, no, I've got what I wanted too.
12:12They won't say anything but
12:16then they'd be unhappy. The next time when they want to do something and I don't let them and
12:20they know then they won't ask. Then there's a rift created between actor and director.
12:26And when that happens, then it's not a good thing.
12:29And it's all, how much more time will it take? One more take. Do it.
12:32It'll take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. So what? It'll take an hour.
12:36Come on, take an hour. What difference will it make?
12:39You know, nothing's going to happen. Let the actor do one more and let him sleep better.
12:45Which you will like. Great.
12:49You'll take a decision later. No problem. But let him do it and move on with your life happily.
12:55Okay. I've seen some directors on set and actors have told me,
12:59they'll say, no, no, not one more. Then the actor will say, why?
13:03Okay. Why? Because I've got what I want. But I want to do it like this.
13:14You're wasting time arguing.
13:18But a lot of directors get stuck.
13:25Or sometimes the actors behave like that. Sometimes the actor gets into that ego.
13:35There's no ego in filmmaking.
13:55So 99% of the times, if Kunal sir told us,
14:02so we used to say, done, sir. But if we thought that Kunal sir's got it,
14:06but we won't be able to sleep, we used to request him.
14:10He used to always give it to us.
14:11Yeah, happily.
14:14Do one more take.
14:16And talking about, you spoke about filmmaking being a collaborative effort.
14:22Now I want both your inputs on this and Kaveri also.
14:26How has technology helped to kind of explore for a collaborative space more?
14:32Because in the earlier times, there used to be filming machines.
14:35We were working against the constraint of time.
14:38But in the current times, everything is so digitized.
14:40You have the luxury of time again.
14:42So how has technology helped to nurture that?
14:45I think technology has helped in every which way.
14:48Because you can, on set, you can check the edit if you want to.
14:56You can check your VFX on sets nowadays.
15:04So I think technology must be embraced as much as you can
15:08and use technology to better your film and make your life easier.
15:12Rather than, you know, not use technology and run away from it.
15:16Technology is the best thing to have happened to filming.
15:21I don't think I'm the right person to ask about this.
15:24I don't.
15:27For example, I'm working on a film.
15:46A two and a half hour film was doing animated figures in front of me.
15:51I think it's amazing because if a director can put his vision out for a film which
15:58you know, he has envisioned and he wants it there so that he can only keep adding to it.
16:03I think it's quite amazing if he's clear with it.
16:06A lot of filmmakers say that I don't want to go with so much clarity
16:09because I want to have this fun on set.
16:11I want to discover as I go along.
16:12But if this director or a particular director I'm talking about who I cannot name at the moment.
16:18If he has that clarity or someone has that clarity, I think it's absolutely amazing.
16:26There was limited footage you had.
16:28There was a limited amount of feet of film you could use.
16:31But today there's no problem like that.
16:33If you need one more take for sure, you need it and it's going to add only to the film.
16:42There are VFX supervisors on set who are showing you how it's happening while going along.
16:48You have a clearer idea of what the final film will look like.
16:52Then you can keep adding to it.
16:53So I think technology is just helping enhance the filmmaking experience and
16:59definitely we are making better films.
17:01Because earlier there was so much difference between digital and film.
17:06It was losing its emotional quality.
17:07Today I can vouch for the fact that you can give the same grain on digital media.
17:14You can achieve the film-like look here.
17:17So there's nothing we're missing.
17:18We're only adding to the experience.
17:20I think it's amazing and especially what AI is going to do soon in filmmaking
17:25is going to take filmmaking to an all-new level.
17:30It's going to be, you can't even imagine what it's going to be.
17:32Even I can't imagine.
17:37you
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