00:00Hello everyone, welcome to INS and congratulations for the second season of Ran and I Do, that's
00:04about to come. My first question is to all three of you, a little more than two years
00:09since the first season, why so much of it? Oh, I was going to, I thought it was, I thought
00:14it was very quick, oh sorry, that's all it is. Listen, it's, I mean, okay, yes, I can
00:19understand from the perspective of the fans, but I like really from the process of just,
00:24you know, thinking of it, making it, before making, writing it, and then just like really
00:31putting it out there to be higher than the first season. We need that much time. We want
00:37to bring the best, but yes, I take your point. I think the endeavor is to come sooner and
00:43sooner, but this person here is responsible. Kevan? Yeah, no, it's, you know, it takes three,
00:48four months to write, six to eight months to shoot, and then another eight months of post
00:53production. So just add that up. If you're not doing anything else at all, and going
00:57at a dentist every day, then that's the time frame it takes to put something as, as sprawling
01:03as Rana Night. Of course, as, you know, more contained shows and series and things that,
01:07which are not so ambitious, and not working with so many, you know, talented people, who
01:14have so many dates to give out to people. So all these, you know, juggling these things
01:22and so passing the baton on to Rana.
01:26So yeah, before you ask the question, I thought we were really quick.
01:28Coming up with part two, so.
01:30Okay, okay. And now tell me, what's the fun part of playing the lead character, the title
01:35character?
01:36Fun part of it?
01:37Yeah.
01:38Rana and I do, and fun don't actually go together in some ways.
01:42No, the process, the creative process.
01:44Well, I think it's a character that's extremely deep. There's, there's so much of trauma that
01:51isn't spoken about. And I think that's a very classic thing with, with Indian males in that
01:56sense, who, who are like heads of families, or that there's a certain over burden of a
02:02responsibility, which is never spoken about. And I think this family of the Naidus encapsulates
02:09all that, whether it's the father and son that have an issue, whether it's the husband
02:15and wife that have issues, whether it's the siblings that have issues with one another.
02:19I think they all come from a traumatic past in some manner, which they're all trying to
02:25address and move forward. I think that to me was the most unique part of being part of
02:30the show. And what was fun in season two was first, I mean, we were one dysfunctional family.
02:35Now there's two. You thought the Naidus were bad, these are worse. So the rich people
02:43have bigger problems. So I think it was.
02:46Rich people have the same problem.
02:47Same problem. So it's magnified in a very strange other way, right? Legacy and all that.
02:52And this character of Naga that keeps meddling between this family and that and kind of going
02:58vice versa. I think that was fun this time.
03:00Okay. And taking from what Tanya said that, you know, you have to really make sure that
03:05it really serves up to the expectation of the audience. When you have something like a legacy
03:10title like this, how, when do you know where to stop? So, like what's that?
03:16You have to abandon it, right? So you say that about any kind of process during filmmaking,
03:25you abandon the writing, you don't really, you can't keep finessing it because film is
03:29one of those things where you, you can keep editing it and it'll keep getting incrementally
03:36better, like 0.2% better or something. But it, so you have to like, Tanya just tells me
03:42to stop is what happens basically. We have a launch date.
03:45Yeah. So there's a launch date and you know, you have to just send the episodes in. So,
03:51but obviously like there's, you could, I mean, this, this is great. Like you could, with the
03:57kind of talent we have on the show, you could just take it anywhere.
04:02Okay. Okay. And Tanya, Netflix has promised some really great things this year. I recently
04:08saw Ms. Igan again, a Netflix licensed content. Tell me what's the thought process like in
04:14terms of both the commission content like Ran and I do or something like a licensed content
04:19that's there in the market already. I think at the heart of it, you know, I always say
04:22that we'd love for our members and our audiences to really have a Netflix night every night,
04:30but can you watch the same thing every day? And we recognize that, you know, variety is
04:34really at the heart of how we all think, behave, choose. So one night you can watch Rana and
04:40I do, but after that, you may want to watch a comedy show like like right now I'm watching
04:46hit the third case. That's a really, really cool movie. So I think it also, it's, it's
04:53about the variety. It's about your mood. It's being about, it's really about being inclusive.
04:58You know, I really would, whether it's about a genre, a type of a grammar that you make
05:03with or a type of filmmaking style. I think we want to be inclusive and not really exclusive.
05:10So therefore we have, you know, comedies and dramas and action shows. We have original films.
05:17We have licensed films. We've also recently sort of set up the South Slate as well. We had
05:21Test which was our first South original. We have a bunch of, you know, titles under development
05:27and production, which are Telugu and Tamil series as well. So really it's about growing
05:34with India and, you know, really taking Indian content to the world.
05:39And building further on that, you know, the Netflix slate is very enormous. As an organization,
05:46you are constantly chasing excellence in terms of, you know, giving better content to audience
05:50every, every month, every week, every year. How can one maintain the objectivity and not
05:56let even the, you know, something which is very obscure in terms of, you know, the distribution,
06:01not let that slip away?
06:02I think it's a, it's, it's a chicken and egg situation, right? It's, it's how the content
06:09takes you forward and how you want to keep going forward. So it's really about recognizing
06:14who the audience is and being audience first. And that actually is the pillar of our strategy,
06:20the foundational sort of stone of our strategies, the audience first thinking as, you know, we
06:27really welcome various styles and, you know, genres of storytelling. But if we, if we only
06:35think from the perspective of the story, I think we'll be looking at half the story, the
06:40people who complete the story is the audience. And it is about how we are growing in the country
06:45and touch wood, you know, the audience has been very kind. People are loving the stories
06:50that we are telling and the variety that we are bringing to them, whether it's from our
06:54own content in India, or it is, you know, whether it's Korean content or our international content
07:00from the US, UK, etc. People are really enjoying that. So the endeavors to actually keep diversifying,
07:06growing and doing really exciting things, breaking some boundaries, trying new things. Now it
07:13sounds like a whole lot of generalization, so I'll stop.
07:16Okay. And Rana, taking that further, the diversification bit, I have observed one thing that you're always
07:21at the forefront, where it comes to presenting different kinds of cinema to different audience
07:26in the country, outside of the country as well. All we imagine as light piles, we last spoke
07:31during the interview. I want to know what goes in the mind of a thought reader like you, to
07:41kind of identify the content and then build everything around it to take it to the world.
07:46Like, to add to what Tanya said in some manner, I think, as Indians, we are, it's unity in diversity,
07:52right? It's just pretty diverse the way the country is. And I was fortunate enough to grow up in
07:57different places. I was born in China. I grew up there for some time, moved to Hyderabad, then
08:02started working in Bombay. So I got to see so much different culture. And I think cinema, the
08:08arts and entertainment is the is the most diversified group that you can get in any working
08:14environment. Because there's no set structure to anyone, you can come from any background. And the
08:20further or the crazier your background is the better story sometimes you are able to tell.
08:25Yeah. And I think, and though with all of this journey, I still feel like my knowledge of India
08:31is still limited. The understanding of relationships are limited. And I think I've learned stuff through
08:37cinema, whatever I know in my life today. I mean, I was a terrible guy at school, I just didn't study
08:41nothing. I just read comic books and watch movies, and some TV shows. So I think that is the largest
08:48education that one can have where you need to know yourself, you need to know who you are,
08:51and where you come from. I think cinema and arts is the only thing that tells you that. And most
08:57times the business of it kind of pigeons you into a place where okay, this is working, let's just do
09:03these things again and again. But as an audience, that's not what you want. You want to see different
09:07things as every time you go. So for me, my job is okay, there is some story that's not being heard
09:12enough. Can I find a mainstream distribution way to make sure that receives that audience? That's
09:18that's pretty much where it is. Okay. And in a creative process,
09:21obsession is of prime importance. That's how I understand it. Because you get an idea,
09:27you start working around it, and then you start getting obsessed with it. You know,
09:30day and night, every moment of the day, you're thinking about it that I'll play this character
09:33in this particular way. I'll pitch it in a certain way. While playing Ranan Aidu, how did you deal
09:39with that obsession? And how did you make the best of that obsession?
09:42Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: One, I think, from the first time I started working on this,
09:48about a couple of years ago, when season one started, I think it was, it was a dark version
09:53of my life. I come from a big joint family, but we're all a very happy and fun loving family. It's a,
10:01it's a big joint family that's the most disjointed that you can find.
10:04Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: I think strangely, if you're an entrepreneur in the, in the media world,
10:09you have to keep constantly fixing things. I'm sure Tanya will agree with that.
10:13Tanya V.D.: Yes. Because, like, every time the challenge is different, it's new,
10:17it's not something that you've seen before. And I feel like that's what this show was,
10:22there was a large part of life that was going on. And unlike a feature film, this was my first show
10:28when I came to it. It's not, it's not a set path. It's not like few obstacles you cross and the film
10:34is done. It's like you're living with these people in some manner. You like, it's almost like life,
10:39right? Like, you might like this person for some time, something that he does, you don't like him.
10:44So there's a larger kind of relationship that you have with people. So I think that,
10:49so it was more life than performance in some ways.
10:51Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: Okay. And Karan, you are born and raised in Bombay and you speak Telugu fairly as
10:57well or? Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: No, I don't speak Telugu.
11:00Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: So how does it work on this set? Like, how do you gauge the moment of the,
11:04the truth of the moment? Ranan Aidu, Ph.D.: So there isn't much Telugu,
11:06but there are some very interesting moments with Telugu that we have had. Like, we had this scene,
11:11we were shooting and it was, it was a face-off between Naga and Rana. Okay. So Venki sir and
11:18Rana are in the scene. It's a pretty tight close and they come in close and there's,
11:24their volume is increasing, you know, with every line, they sort of, and it's all in Hindi,
11:30but you know, so that one freedom, like I always tell my actors, absolutely feel free to improvise.
11:37If you, if you feel like in the moment, there's something more you want to say, or you want to
11:42move around or whatever it is. And once in a while, what they do is they break into Telugu, right? So,
11:47and one of the, and it's always about, let's not do anything that is crucial to the story in Telugu,
11:54but more, what is the mood and what is it that you want to say? And it comes naturally to them
11:59in any case. So I'm, I always try to push them into like, like go over the floor and just carry
12:04forward in Telugu if you have to. And so that was happening in this really intense scene. Okay.
12:09And then suddenly, you know, it's simmering, simmering, and then they break into Telugu. I'm like,
12:14okay, the magic has started. They're in character. Something is going on over here.
12:18And I'm going, you know, it's one line, two lines, three lines, Telugu is going on it.
12:22And then I hear the word biryani.
12:26So I was like, one sec, one sec, cut.
12:31So basically I was like, did you have lunch? I've got some great lunch.
12:35So I need a call for cut. I was like, okay, let's just be in the moon and say whatever is going on.
12:39It's going to be lunch break anyways.
12:41Okay, okay. We're in that same mood, but same lines.
12:49Okay. And for my last question, Tanya, I've been willing to ask this since so long.
12:54Guns and Gulab's second season, when we get to see, and also if there's any possibility for
12:59Mindhunter new season coming up.
13:01You always ask me this.
13:03You know, I would say,
13:04I don't know if we necessarily need to do Mindhunter. That's a very US driven thing. But whether it
13:13is Quora or whether it is Black Warren, it sort of gives you that kind of payoff of understanding
13:20the criminal system, the justice system, the criminals, all of that a little better.
13:27And Guns and Gulab's, we've got Raj and DK really, really busy with Rakth Praman right now.
13:32So I think they'll get to it as soon as they can. It's one of my favorite shows as well. So trust me,
13:39I'm always on their tail for this.
13:41Okay, perfect. So with that, we have reached the end of this conversation. If there's anything that I may
13:45have been asking or something that you would have loved to talk about. So please feel free.
13:48I'd call out Arjun. I think Arjun's addition to the, the cast this season is actually really,
13:56really dynamic. And I think the chemistry between Rauf and Rana is something to watch out for. I'm
14:02personally very excited about that.
14:03Okay, perfect. And Rana?
14:05Who was it? It's out June 13th. You tell me.
14:08Perfect. So on that note, thank you so much. And I wish you all the best for the second season.
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