 watching to the audience viewing this. Welcome to another candid conversation. I have with Yivine Fatuk and Vivan Shah. You know them, you have loved them on screen. Yes, I have two legends with me. I was here to legend and a cellulite star. So before I start this conversation, let me just say that these theatres brings this audience an upcoming classic tale of stories called Foye Baat Jalee. And my very first question to both of you all is what can we see in this upcoming series? What can you tell us about it? If it was up to me, I wouldn't tell you anything about it. I would say, wait for it to start. Yeah, get streaming and watch it because it's very, very exciting. Really, really exciting. Even for somebody who's been a part of it, you know, as many days that we took to prep it, very, very children excited that it's coming on air soon. It's a very unique sort of form. The medium itself of the cine play has a wonderful tradition and a long tradition in both television and the cinema. And this is a wonderful synthesis of both of those things. And it's a really interesting way to document the theatre and also to create a new performance style, a new art form for these works to be communicated to a new audience, to the audience that watches various things on the digital mediums. And I think it's very, I think it's a wonderful way of introducing the audience to the works of Renchan, to the works of classic Hindi literature, there's stories, there's a story by Harishankar Prasai and there's also stories by Manto. And so it's a wonderful, wonderful constellation of some of the greatest writers of our country ever. And I'm really intrigued to know what was both of your experience working with Seema, such an incredible actor that she is and now in the seat of a director, what was that experience like? Awesome. I've had a privilege of working on a first film as well, Rampasad Ki Thervi. I've never worked in any of our theatre productions, but this one was very much like, not exactly like the theatre experience, but the way we rehearsed and the way we prepped was very how we would rehearse for a play. And then the way we shot was again, a wonderful marriage of stage and lens and cinema. And it's good to spend time with Seema Ji always, you know, even with work or without work, it's always great fun. She's amazing in everything that she does and I feel very, very fortunate, lucky and privileged. Thank you very much. Really, really wonderful, wonderful experience. I cannot tell you how much I learned from working with Seema Ji. It was a truly, truly educative experience for me because Seema Ji is a really, really stimulating person to speak to and to hear her stories and to also hear her insights into these pieces was fascinating. The way she really illuminated certain aspects of Gulli Randa, the piece that I'm doing, the way she taught me a lot, not just about the work, but also about life, I think. I learned a lot about life also from Seema Ji because she brings her whole life experience and her wonderful art to the work. That's the most, I think that's one of the greatest aspects of Seema Ji as an artist is that in all her works as an actor and as a director, there's a very specific and unique vision at play and I think that's one of the most, there's a very distinctive style and stamp that Seema Ji has on all of her works and it was just such an honour and a privilege to one of her works. It's been a dream of mine to work with her for so long and I'm so glad that that dream came true this time. Well, I'm excited and incredibly intrigued to see the show now but I do also wanted to know. Recently, I was in a conversation with an author and she told me that every generation needs an historian to tie our legacy, our past with the present generation in a new way, in a way that the generation will enjoy it even more because we have such rich, you know, a rich past of great culture, literary culture and literary art is so rich and so good that a lot of people miss out on it because it's not portrayed in a way that will excite the youth. Do you feel the series that you are presenting to us now would be something in these lines that would be engaging to you in great tales of the past? Yes, absolutely. I think you were talking earlier about how at one point in the previous century literature was one of the preeminent, it was one of the most prominent art forms and it's taken a backseat over the years as the visual mediums have taken over but I do hope that this inspires people to go back to literature and to also take up reading again. I think that's a very important thing. I think that would be a great success if these pieces managed to do that, if they managed to convey an interest in literature and to stimulate the viewer to take up an interest in literature. I think that would be one of our aims. And Vanessa, do you feel that with the series such as these that people are going to enjoy having a different take, a different taste, exploring different genres once it gets more popular instead of just watching some mainstream romantic film or a Mitch Masala sort of a mainstream film in Bollywood that we usually see? Do you feel that series such as this would intrigue the audience to develop a different kind of taste? I hope so. Good. We will see the program that is going to tell us the story of Saeed. I wish I could say things like that but that's not how it works. People are going to watch what they want to watch, be it Masala or Boiled however they like, it's their choice and we need to respect that. That's fine too. Having said that, storytelling like this is also very exciting and enthralling for everybody, people who are making it, people who are involved in telling the tale and I'm sure people who are going to watch it, they would enjoy it too so that's the hope and wish. So jumping on again to the series, is there anything in particular with the episodes that the two of you are involved in that you are very intrigued with something that's unique that you're waiting to see how the audience is going to react to or is there anything in particular you're very excited to present to your audience? I am very very thrilled to be very honest. I've done something like this for the very first time. I've done theater before, I've done cinema before, I've done television before but I haven't done something, it's like fusion. There's fusion in music, there's fusion in literature, there's fusion in cinema and theater, there's many different kinds of fusion happening in theater also. I've seen plays where they have used screens and cameras and so this kind of dramatic reading was my first and I had a great time, I had a wonderful time doing it, shooting it, pressing for it, interacting with other actors, whereas in every story there's just one actor and what Seemaji did is she made it an ensemble kind of a thing and then we all met and we all interacted, we all heard each other's stories, we all exchanged stories, it was fantastic. I remember telling Seemaji that you know what we should even if there's nobody paying us to do something like this for a platform, I think we should just meet like this at least once a week or twice a week and make it a forum just to exchange ideas, meet friends, I mean we've been through pandemic, deprived of people meeting, going to theater and listening to wonderful music in a live concert, we've been deprived of that for two years so we should know the value of you know something like this and I do, I do and that's why I had a gala time and I hope people who watch it dig a sense of what we went through and enjoy it as well. Yes, I think it's a very very, it really is something that is an extension of the theater into the world of the camera and the screen which is a very fascinating marriage of both those and it was the process of making this was really really thoroughly enjoyable just meeting up with Vinay Bhai and every other person in the same place so oftentimes we would run into each other and you know we'd have different time slots of when we were going to work with Seemaji so we'd sit around and you know have a cup of tea and it was really such a joyous experience the entire thing it was really, it was a group of friends getting together after a long time and creating something, making something happen which was one of the great joys of our profession is that we get to work with people that we love and that are close to us our friends and whose work we respect so much and that's one of the great joys, that's one of the great joys of working on this project I'm just going to hang out with some amazing people that's the great thing here So being an audience member to the both of you all, Vinay sir I wanted to know from films like you know Beja Pray where you're playing a character that delivers dialogues like where you're really testing someone's like blood pressure and you're wondering if people are going to have an irritation problem after this and then you come into a character where in made in heaven you literally teach the audience to not be so soon to judge to know someone's story entirely to know their struggles I wanted to know how do you pick these roles what is this choice that you made between these unique characters they're not the main hero of every script that you're in but they are so there's so much more value than that so I just want to know what's the process like when you pick they can select your role I don't know I guess that the roles pick me or I don't go out picking roles I don't know who's writing what but sometimes when the script comes and when you like something you indulge and you commit to it and you know then then you commit to the director and then you collaborate with the director and so forth and you know so on but as you mentioned the the films and the projects that you mentioned it's you know it was it was great at the time that it came and some of them became very successful so people start to associate you you know with the character you have played once and for all I want to clarify I'm not the beja fry guy uh I'm not here to irritate you I'm also not the made in heaven guy I don't have a dubious sexual orientation lifestyle I am not living in a closet and I I don't pry on young boys to you know to satiate my fantasy those are the characters that I play and it's very important for people to know through you Kavya that they were just fictional characters we even if we invest ourselves in fictional characters we don't become them and we don't have to defend them also later on in the future because majority of the time it seems that I'm apologizing for the beja fry character or or the chalo delhi character or the destiny of the character or the made in heaven character kia kyo apne aya aap karthi was kya suh rathya aap maini suchh rathya bhai wo director kya rathya wo agar aisi kahanyeo na aap kyo prachap chodi hai toh achhi baat wo buri baat nahi aur ish ishi liye kahani kahne ka sunne ka uh suna ne ka ye jo uh tradition hai hamara ye jo uh hamarni sanskriti hai ye jo hamara process hai karthu kabeen theater get through ye chalte rahe na chinye mere ye man na koi baat chale uh kbc of another kind is just another another process uh another attempt in the same direction and I sincerely sincerely hope that people watch it and like it and uh kabia it's up to you now how you make it accessible to more and more people with your social media accounts and all will definitely try my best and Vibhan I wanted to know like similarly you know seeing you play such a serious role or someone with like great curiosity in like sath koon maaf do one who cannot make you stop laughing and has your heart in like happy new year your selection of roles is so versatile like I mean you do come from a family of like great actors so did you have a plan like did you have a plan that you know in my film journey I am going to do this set of roles in these kinds of movies no no as as whenever I rightly put it the the role chooses you you don't choose the role uh and uh one does whatever work comes one's way and and one is always grateful for whatever work even so great you know like of course in every actor's filmography there's a lot of things that they are not very proud of but one does still respect the fact that they are work and that somebody thought of that role and you know no matter how the turned out if it wasn't a very successful film or a good film and that sort of thing but uh but but I have been very fortunate that I got to work on the lovely films and and some other great stuff also and and and also the thing is that well I probably for a for a long time people they I did not I guess because I look very sort of childlike and I look very childlike for a long time I would not get very interesting roles I guess all the auditions that I would get were not for the kind of characters that I was interested in playing but so but that's something that's part of life one has to reconcile that and and it's also that that's also the thing is that because I look very childlike people would not consider me for so that's a very something that you have to just deal with and that's a part of life hopefully that will change as I grow older and uh and but I've been fortunate to have done the work that I've done I've just been really fortunate to to be working you know that's the most important and as far as planning and but but I I really had a great time essaying the characters that I did and in a special I really enjoy playing Bombayya characters because I've grown up speaking that lingo the Bombayya language whenever I get a chance to play a character that's a Bombayya character kind of so you know right now like today if the world broke to the news that you know RRR finally won an award at the Golden Globe the song won an award at the Golden Globe and was so exciting to see that representation out on such a global like international platform that was viewed by so many and it was great fun to see that a film which was just not expected to make the charts that it did reaching such platforms I wanted to know is there any plans in the future for the two of you that you all have to come up with any projects that you're expecting to make international like records or any international like intimidation or any upcoming yeah I'm I'm thinking of I'm thinking of learning how to put in the exterior Oscars I should have a song out he I hope so yeah I really really want to be one so happy can't plan the other side of the Oscar man can't say who's a good thing yeah I'll be a little it's not going to be there yet, but we'll make it a beauty on it not at all about anything about a global platform but any upcoming project no I mean that can go to Oscars that's any project because you see as a fan we have time with any film of like series that is more coming up for me guys so honestly I think I think I think KBC this our version of KBC which is called koi baat chale okay people can argue this is not KBC but let me tell you wow it's also KBC so our KBC I think has the potential to go to Emmys what do you think absolutely but only this we'll have to get Charles Dickens to write the subtitles we have to get Premchand's people we need to get very cool like who's a heavyweight in Premchand's category to write the subtitle to translate Premchand into English right so you need like a diggin from Tolstoy like Tolstoy is Russian sorry you know a stalwart of English literature yes so thank you so much for answering my questions today thank you so much I'm so excited to see this series and honestly whether it makes the Oscar or not it's definitely making my wish list and I think that's a great accomplishment so thank you so very much well if you see it and if you like it that is our Oscar let me thank you so much thank you so very much thank you Kavya