Alia Bhatt’s film Gangubai Kathiawadi, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, had its premiere at Berlin Film Festival. During the press conference at Berlinale, Bhansali and Alia opened up about her reaction to the script, the experience of working on the film, how Alia portrayed Gangubai, and more.
Alia Bhatt and Sanjay Leela Bhansali at the Berlin Film Festival.
(Photo Courtesy: @jenskochphoto for Berlinale)
Talking about Alia Bhatt portraying the matriarch of Kamathipura, Sanjay Leela Bhansali said, “I think Alia, for a long time, is going to live in being Gangubai, because she has played it to the hilt. She has, I think, become more Gangubai than Alia in real life. Her boyfriend complains about her speaking like Gangubai at home.”
Bhansali further talked about shooting for ‘Dholida’, “When she danced in ‘Dholida’, I thought, ‘Here is an actor who finally transcended’, and it’s a very gooseflesh moment for me, to even talk about it and think about it.. She just became one with Gangu and expressed all her angst and all she had gone through in that one song.”
“And it’s a shot that I’ll take to my grave. If there’s any shot I want to be played when I breathe my last, it would be Alia doing that shot. It is completely the best thing I’ve seen an actor do in a long time,” Bhansali added.
“This song was not about the dance. He wanted me to really reach a sort of emotional transcendence and space I’ve never tapped into before and that’s what happened. It’s moments like this that (make me) believe in the magic of cinema,” Alia said about the track ‘Dholida’. She revealed that Bhansali said, “Mere saare gaane ek taraf aur ye shot ek taraf.”
Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Alia Bhatt Talk About Her Response to the Script
About her inspiration behind playing Gangu, Alia said, “My biggest inspiration before I began the film and through it was my director. I’ve wanted to be directed by him ever since I was 9; that was when I walked into his house for the first time to audition for ‘Black’. I did a terrible audition."
She added that Bhansali saw ‘a fire’ in her eyes and since then she has wanted to work with Bhansali.
Bhansali revealed that Alia rushed out of his office after she heard the script for the first time. Alia added, "I was not expecting this part, not expecting this level of performance. The fact that sir believed I would be able to pull it off before I believed it, was surreal to me.”
Alia Bhatt opened up about the speech the real Gangubai gave at Azad Maidan wherein she highlighted the plight of sex workers in India.
Talking about the same, Alia said, "The speech that Gangubai gave in Azad Maidan was written about, talked about. Post that she met then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. What she said in that speech requires a lot of perspective from where they’re coming from and to actually sit there and speak from the heart to the audience sitting in that scene, I had to know and feel every inch of what she was saying.”
Gangubai Kathiawadi follows the story of a woman, Gangubai, as she rises to power in Kamathipura and becomes a voice for the sex workers in the district. The film draws inspiration from her portion in the book ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai’ by Hussain Zaidi. It is scheduled for a theatrical release on 25 February.
The film is also Alia’s third release at the Berlin Film Festival after Gully Boy and Highway.
You can watch our chat with Alia Bhatt on Gangubai Kathiawadi here:
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