After a great run at the movies last year with the blockbuster Stree, Rajkummar Rao beings 2019 with Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. He got candid about choosing quality over quantity, the representation of homosexuality in films and whether only certain ‘kind’ of content-driven films work.
From the look of it, the film seems to revolve around Sonam Kapoor’s character and when asked whether that was a concern for him he said, “No, I think the last thing you can be as an artist is be insecure about things. You can’t be selfish and say that it’s my film and only my face should be on the poster. With Ek Ladki Ko Dekha… when I read the script it just touched me. I was moved by the story and I thought that here is a story that I really want to be a part of and of course I knew that Sonam was there, and Anil sir was there and Juhi ma’am was there but that’s how the script is.”
The trailer also hints at the fact that Sonam’s character is homosexual. Bollywood for years has shown homosexual characters as caricatures, but Rajkummar said that he was careful about not accentuating any stereotype. He said, “I don’t like things which are caricature-ish in nature and I don’t like making fun of any community so I’m very responsible as an actor that way. This is also very real in nature and it’s highly entertaining, and very sweet.” Prod him as to whether he would be open to playing a gay character and he said, “You never know, never say never. But it will be a very different take, I would try and bring something new to it.”
Rajkummar has also now become the poster-boy for ‘content-driven’ cinema and that seems to be the mantra for most people. But do all content driven films find an audience? Case in point being his own film Omertà, which didn’t do well at the box office. Responding to the same he says, “Omertà was definitely very dark and was always meant to be niche film. Also I think somewhere you have to make people aware as well that there is this film coming. I think in Omertà I don’t know what was the reason but somehow we couldn’t reach only to the people that there is this film coming. Now there are so many people who reached out to me and Hansal sir that they want to watch it and if it’s available.”
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga releases on February 1.
Camera: Vinay Kumar Pandey
Video Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan
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