With the release of ‘Laapata Ladies’, director and former wife of Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao spoke to BizAsiaLive.com about her excitement in the film opening up to audiences this weekend.
Are you excited for your film ‘Laapata Ladies’ release?Super excited! I’m biting my finger nails and if I could reach my toenails, I would bite them also!
I’m assuming you’re excited but also very nervous.I am, I am super nervous. Of course I haven’t made a film in 13 years, but it has also not been the greatest time for cinema post COVID, except now. We have had so many nice hits that I feel that ray of hope that I might catch some of that luck and the fantastic box office reviews. I’m really nervous and I hope that people choose to come and watch my film.
I would do anything that I needed to do in terms of my homework, but I couldn’t help but be nervous.
I’m sure they will. That brings me to my first question, how do you feel after getting back to directing after ‘Dhobi Ghat’, you said it yourself, it’s been 13 years since you directed.You know I was apprehensive, I was nervous and I thought I wouldn’t know what to do when I was on set only because it’s the kind of thing you have a lot of self doubt about especially when this film is so different than ‘Dhobi Ghat’, I had my own misgivings and I had my mounds of nervousness. I would do anything that I needed to do in terms of my homework, but I couldn’t help but be nervous. But luckily once I was on set, it felt like I was swimming or something. You never forget how to swim. It was like jumping in a lovely, cold pool and then going for a long swim. After that it was just very natural and instinctive honestly.
‘Laapataa Ladies’ directed by Kiran Rao
Can you share some insights into the creative process behind developing the characters and storyline of the film?So I often look for something when I’m casting. It’s a face that without saying anything, the person can depict the core of the character, the intangible quality of that character. You should be able to see the face and be able to feel the character. So sometimes it is in the performance, but in this case, it has a lot to do with the physicality as well. I really was looking to cast interesting faces that would represent these characters very naturally and organically. My process for this film was trying to grocery wide when I was trying to cast because we were looking for fresh faces. I knew that I wanted to shoot on real locations so even in terms of reccing, I really wanted to explore all possible places that could be 2001 rural India and have the beauty of that landscape that we have where the villages haven’t changed as much and we still have some of that rustic beauty. So my process was first getting the best HOD’s for the job and I think that is the most critical part of film-making: it is casting the crew, if you know what i mean. Once you have the right people for the job, it is great fun because you begin to jam and have ideas together and respond to reccies or auditions together so then it becomes my favourite part of film-making. It is teamwork and working on things together. Pre-production is a lot of that you know. It’s all ideas that you can toss out and test and because you still haven’t got to set so you really can test out ideas and prep. I had a long prep time actually. We were sort of crippled by Covid and 2021, when we were doing prep, we had the second wave. So that sort of played spoilsport but it also gave us the time to arrive at, I think the right decision when we were casting and were making the music. In fact, Ram and I worked on the sound of the film, what kind of musical quality we felt this movie should have in the pre-production stage. So actually when I was at my locations, I was listening to the music that we would be setting our shots to. So I really enjoyed being quite well prepared for this film.
Kiran Rao & Aamir Khan separated in 2021
I think that’s a good that you were all prepared before getting actually to shoot, so you were kind of well versed with everything that was happening.I agree, I feel it’s a bit of privilege, you know time is money and you know when you have that time it’s really a luxury because honestly however the film turns out sometimes it’s in the best ideas come when you know are sitting around you know whatever in your after hours chatting and having a cup of coffee discussing ideas and you know the best part of film-making is the journey. So however the film turns out what you value the most is the time you spend while you are creating.
It is teamwork and working on things together. Pre-production is a lot of that you know. It’s all ideas that you can toss out and test and because you still haven’t got to set so you really can test out ideas and prep. I had a long prep time actually.
Yeah no I 100% agree that’s a nice way of looking at things as well. But so can you elaborate over the messages and the themes you want to convey through the film.Honestly these aren’t themes that havent been discussed before or are alien to most people or even women. But in a nutshell what we were going for is an idea that women need to have choices or a choice over how they spend their lives, what they want to do, how they want to live and really otherwise we wanted to advocate women finding more space for themselves even you know within the lives that they had, making time for themselves, doing the things they love and valuing themselves as much as they value their family and naturing themselves as much as they nature their families.
