 that's pretty accurate yeah hey we'll go back to her stupid reflexes of Corbin, I'm Rick. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, more juicy content. That was specifically what, cause you know, we've traveled a lot together, we've stayed in places together. That's pretty much spot on to the sounds Corbin makes when he's in the bathroom. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, more juicy content, like he's paid for all sorts of stuff. Threads like button. Today's just gonna forever call it Twitter, aren't you? Yes, yeah. Are you gonna forever correct for some weird reason even though you're not on it? Well, I just find it weird that you, what other businesses you refer to by their former names? Do you still call it HBO Max, even though it's just now Max? I call it HBO. Yeah, that's what I figured. Why wouldn't I? It's HBO, they were fucking stupid for changing it. HBO brand is way bigger than the... So is Twitter, I agree, but that's no longer the business name. I don't care. And nobody else does, except for you. No, no, no, that's not true. Everybody on Twitter still calls it Twitter. Cause we've talked about it, I read a lot of Twitter. I read a lot of news. News doesn't mean people call it that. But it does when the news stories are talking about that. No, absolutely not. You're not even on fucking Twitter! Stop talking about it! Why does it annoy you so much? Because you keep fucking talking about it. Today we got a Karen Johar interview with film companion. Yeah, this is called film companion. Yes, with Anupa Chopra, which is actually, this is actually, just happened a few days ago. The, at least it was posted a few days ago and so it's post Rocky Arani coming out. If you haven't seen our Rocky Arani review, go watch that. I loved it, Rick liked it, nowhere near as much as I did. But yeah, mine was a lower case like. Yes, but I love this movie and a lot of people sent us this interview cause he goes in depth about Ranveer, Alia and obviously everything else as a filmmaker and all that. So we got this, sent this quite a bit. And if this is in two parts, I'm sorry, it's a long video. So sometimes people don't like long videos and so they post them in two times. I don't know yet. It might be in one part. Here we go. Pocky needed to be this lovable. That's the greatest synopsis of a film I've ever heard. Because it had to. And I've been feeling this burst of anxiety for the last year and I have been addressing it, but it was at its height at the time of the release week. So, that morning when the film released, I just said, I have to, it's out there now. There's nothing I can do. I just have to like, hope for the best. And how are you feeling right now with the box office, with the rave reviews? What's going on in your head? I mean, I know, I mean, I've spoken about this to you. The box office is lovely and it's gratifying and it's growing from strength to strength and it's making me smile. I have never received these kind of reviews. I'm not used to them. I'm not used to being reviewed well. There's always a certain level of polarization when my films come. I love that. You either get the two stars and some three and a halfs and fours or threes and all you get like bashed completely and I go back to all my movies and I read those reviews. I think my name is Khan got some good reviews and that time it was like, like I would say 60 to 70% review positive kind of zone. This time there was just like good reviews everywhere and I was like, what is happening? What did I do in May? I made a mistake. I'm not supposed to be reviewed well. I actually, I guess there weren't a lot but I read two or three negative reviews from India. So I don't know. Most are positive. I'm not used to un-liking my film. I'm not used to. This is not true. I mean, yes, I know, but you liked them in retrospect. But this time you liked them in the current mode and then everyone at film companion liked it. I was like, I asked you for all the size number and I haven't yet to speak to me, missed each other because I was like, I went to the office and I was like, Mayank Shekhar liked my film and everyone liked my film then people are writing columns on it. And I was like, and I would go back to where the journey and everything began. But like I was, so at one point, Apura was trying to track the box office collections but as a filmmaker and as an artist, I was kind of so happy to revel in this critical love because I felt like- I've never had it before. Or me and said, I've seen your film twice. I was like, what is going on? To see this film again. I love that for him. I'm like, I'm in the same breath. I got a call from Guru uncle, Mr. Rakesh Roshan. So I was like a massive mainstream filmmaker and the real movement, the alternate movement, poster boy, both called me one after the other. How is this possible? Like what, and you know, when I was just getting these calls, I was like, for a minute it took me a while to, I was absorbing, you know, I was really absorbing and I was trying to kind of figure out what was going on. Like, I was like, this is not what I signed up for. And these things happened, you know? I thought, you know, oh my God, they're going to talk about all the same song and dance and a designer clothes and all of that is of course there. But I'm hoping they see that, you know, because I always feel like I try to do stuff but it never gets acknowledged. Well, it came 2023 to July 28th and good things happened on that morning. So yeah, that's why I was feeling surprised, shocked, annihilated. I want to start with what I love most in the movie which is Rocky Randam. Yeah, yes. He is just fabulous. I mean, we all fell in love, right? I want to understand where did he come from? What was your brief to your writers, to Ishikar, to Shashank, to Sumit about creating this madness? So, you know, in the pandemic, when I decided that I had to put Takht on hold and I wanted to write a love story, I used to be a lot on the gram, you know, and there was a lot of these West Delhi influencers who were kind of speaking and they would of course be content creators as well as influencers. And I was very, very amused by how they were. They were so full of life and they were joyous and yet saying the funniest things, you know. And so I think Rocky came from there. I always wanted to talk about, then it came about like talking about a love story that was not about essentially like people kept thinking it was like two states initially. Because that's about two different communities. Like, you know, then you're talking about the South Indian community and the Punjabi. Mine was never about that. Mine was about patriarchy and matriarchy. It was always the clash of the two where the Punjabi family are essentially patriarchal in nature. Even though they're led by women. Yes, even though they're led by women, which is what I brought in to bring in the irony. And then of course, we all know about Bengali families and how matriarchal they are and how beautiful that is. That is the core thought. And then I went back into a personal story which I don't want to speak about. It's about the family that had an instance that then I put into the film which formed the crux of the Dharamji and the Shabanaji love story. So when all that came together, Rocky needed to be this lovable. He had to be poo but updated. I know, I think he's the most charismatic character you've created after poo. Yeah, so he was like, he was the male poo. And he was like the Ken to Barbie, but like borrowing from poo who is Barbie, you know? So it's like, it's all ironical that Barbie is out here. But like, he was like the perfect kind of Ken who had rough edges. I'm always very amused and impressed by the gym culture, because I feel like boys who go to the gym, I feel like they only talk about that. So I wanted him to be a gym boy. I wanted him to be, you know, but I wanted to be golden hearted. Like he would do, Banda hai, you know, like dost hai. Like, you know, Sab kayaar hai. You know, he's into his BFF and he's into the family and he's full like, you know, chaati, you know, like Tahan, Zeena Thanke, he's everywhere. But he is the type who would be pouring them all in shop. Like, you know, and buy everything. And buy everything branded, because that's what he thinks is cool. You know, so he'll wear Gucci on his sleeve, but he also has his heart on his sleeve. And that's where he was always. So that was how Shushank and Ishita and Sumit collectively kind of brought Rocky Randhawa to life, you know. But the important thing was, never should he come across annoying. Never should he come across like he's grating on your nerves and overdoing it. It's a fine line, right? With a character like this. If you go the other way, you can be absolutely annoying and over the top. It's too obvious genius that he... I'm going to come to that because it's such a match of actor and character. You see, it's like, how did you, what was your brief to him? Because he is energetic, he is flamboyant, but he doesn't cross the line. How did you balance that? How did he do it? I have no credit to take for that. Ishita wrote some great dialogue. Firstly, she is from Delhi. She's half Punjabi, half Bengali. Oh! Drown up in Delhi. So the dialogue came from... Shashank has grown up in Kolkata. You know, Sumit is Bengali. Right. So it was a clear writer's room of like people who have seen these people. So the idea was to make Rocky always lovable and vulnerable and obviously clueless about the work. He really doesn't know his politics. He doesn't know about anything. And he doesn't care but that's not what his aim is like, you know, to kind of run the family business and just kind of be himself, write his Ferrari and just like, you know, do what he has to do. So I think everyone booked that brief and that memo. But when we gave it to Ranveer and he heard the dialogue, when we were on a Reki Anu for three weeks in Delhi, Ranveer was with me right through those three weeks. On a Reki? On a Reki. We had nothing to do. Reki? What's Reki? He would meet those Instagrammers that we had a long list of people, including Raj, who's also a content creator and has those with us on set right through. He would speak to them. He would pick up Lingo. He would like absorb. He would go everywhere. He would, he would even be driving around Delhi and just getting the flavor. I know what he was doing but he had a process. He was there in Delhi, right through my Reki. Like he never came on the locations but he was in the hotel working with the team. Maybe it's a location scouting? Content creators, influencers, getting the line. He worked it. He created the Rocky Randhawa, you see, is a lot on paper but it's a lot to do with him. Oh yeah. Did he improvise the lines? Yes, yes. Many of them because like, he had picked them up from here in Delhi. And you know, he would like improvise them. Yeah. Never veered away from the script. But the lines were intrinsically very funny also, you know, they are very funny. So he had a lot to play with in any case. Right. But he brought in some of the, you know, like the little bit of the Delhi lingo that he picked up, picked up and he just brought a lot of that of his own self. In many ways, Rocky is an extension of Ranveer's personality. Yeah. But it's the, it's an OTT version of him also. Right. But also Ranveer is an OTT Ranveer. That is, is not like this all the time. Yeah. This is his persona out there. Yeah. He comes here, if he comes to the film companion office, he'll be like, he'll own the room. Yeah. But otherwise he vanished for 12 hours and he'll be in his own, in his thoughts. Like I always tease Ranveer. I don't know how to get in touch with him because he's got a message you don't know when that reply will come. Because he's thinking, he's absorbing, he's, he used to like literally sit for 10, 10 hours on his own just with the character. I don't know what he does, but like, when he comes on set, and I have to tell you an anecdote, the first day we shot with him in character was the first scene he meets Ranveer in the office. By mistake, he had a feeling we were shooting another scene. So he was like, oh, I'm, I'm not prepped for this scene. This is the biggest scene. It's my first scene. I'm meeting Ranveer for the first time. So I was like, yeah, but we're shooting this. That is something we do on the lines. Because he's like, no, I know my lines, but I need to prep. And I realized he was very hyper. So I went up to him and said, what happened? So he's like, you know, when you prepare for history and someone tells you the exam is geography, that's what I'm feeling right now. So I said, okay, take your time. Take four hours. We'll take a break. He went, I don't know what he did. He came back in. How does that happen? I don't know. Like it was done. And when we were on the monitor, I was like, God, he's got it. He just got it. It probably makes sense for the lead in the film though, because it might have just been a mix up. He might have, somebody might have told him. Turn your eye towards him. You'll see that he's really equally hilarious things. And because of Alia's sheer genius, she was organically reacting to them. Because it was, you must also say that because of Rani's reactions, Rocky actually comes across even more intriguing and funny. Because she's giving really like, without giving like over the top reaction, which is really looking like, she's kind of hard, but he's like a creature. But he's kind of sexy in his own way is what the look she gave. Oh, he's very sexy. I told her, I said, she said, what do you want me to do? I said, I kind of want you to think you're turned on at this point. But you don't want to address it because it's kind of like, like you won't be able to admit to yourself that you'll be attracted to a man like this. Right, right. You know, the dance that Ramveer and Totalo is doing is just dola re dola. It was just so spectacular. And just so exuberant and defined and joyous. What was it like to create that? Firstly, there are two homages. I've paid two filmmakers. One is Yastropra with Tum Kiamile. I wanted a Yastropra snow jacket saris song. Where's the chemistry? Where's the chemistry? Let me just be more honest and say copy. I copied a Yastropra song like I copied a Sanjay Bansali. Right, right. And my brief to Amrita was, let's do a Sanjay Bansali. And this is in... We pointed that out. Yeah. In the way that one would say it with a lot of love and respect. We all know it's a copy. I mean, it's copied. It's very much Sanjay Bansali's aesthetic. It's not mine. It's his beautiful aesthetic that I have copied. So I'm very happy to say it, put it out on record. And I don't want anyone to say that I in any way thought that I was doing something different. But the sequences was beyond the set. It was much more than what was... Because of the context, yeah. It was never about the set had to look like that because I wanted that. To the naked eye, it had to look beautiful on Sali-esque. That to me was just the part B of it. The part A was the song, Dola Redola, is to subvert it and to kind of make it... Because it's about also things that I have believed in personally. As a child, I was very effeminate and I used to dance in my own room to hiddhi fan songs, to Lataji songs. And my dad thought it was great. Like he used to think CD dance on Duff Lee Bali and I used to do the Jaya Plata part. And I used to pick up the step and I was doing my step. And my father used to watch and clap. And every time his friends came, he would say, Karan, dance the house of the boy. He would put on the song and I would dance. That's wonderful. And don't only do that. There was anything wrong with that at that time. So I grew up thinking, this is fine. Much later when you go to college and you realize that you carry that through and you do those moves and people look at you and laugh. And you're called all kinds of things and there are terms used. And it stayed in my heart. Because I feel like I grew up with that feeling that I was laughed at for my body language or for my way of being. It breaks my heart. Somewhere Tota's character is borrowed from my childhood. And so when he says, there is no gender. I believe that. I believe that. So I felt that Rockies coming around had to happen because the most so-called misogynist macho man, him doing Kathak, who when you show in the Punjabi sequence everybody when all the family, the Sandeep people laugh, that's what 90% of people would do if you saw a man. People who are not culturally inclined or don't know better, they do that. And they laugh. They find it the feminism funny instead of appreciating it as an art form. That's why we wanted to run full marks to Waibhavi, who actually worked tirelessly on Tota and Ranbir. At one point I remember Hanbir calling me. He says, man, I don't have this in my body. I don't have Kathak in my body. Like I just can't do it. I just can't do it. He was really having a meltdown. Tota was struggling because Tota's not a dancer. He's not a classical dancer. He's an actor who has rhythm. He has party rhythm. But he's Kathak's half-bhavs and hand and everything in perfection. And Waibhavi is a perfectionist. She didn't let them go. Tota was rehearsing for six months. Wow. Six months. Non-stop in Kolkata. Non-stop he had a teacher come and teach him. Ranbir rehearsed for over a month and a half just for that one and a half minute clip. And of course the song that followed. I get it. Because he found it very... He's saying this is possibly the most challenging thing I've ever done. So finally, when it's getting these applause, it's very gratifying for them because they put in the work. We can see but they have to absolutely execute. And that is not easy. So that scene was about the subversion of also about... And going back to Ki Hunar ka koi gender nahi hota. Correct. And that's why I think that you have a... Kind of a feeling of some kind of pride and joy when you see that moment. Like, what did you feel when you saw it? Just like the joy. Yeah, yeah. Just the heart. It's a heart, you know? So that's what it was. And as I said, a lot of it came from my own... I wouldn't call it traumatic. It wasn't that traumatic to me. It was just like... Like my dad was okay with me dancing. The boys in the world. My dad was so... But it just stayed with you. It stayed because I'm like... My dad would clap and applaud. It was such a... As he should. Maybe he didn't know what he was reacting to. I don't even know whether he realized that he was... That at that time in the late 80s, late 70s, early 80s that his son was dancing to all these songs. It could appear really unusual, is the word. But he never thought it was. Yeah. It was. You know, but... Kind of my old time favourite moment. And spoiler alert everybody. This is going to be a spoiler filled conversation. It was the kiss between Dharamji and Shabana. Okay, I did not see that coming. I don't think anyone did. There was an audible gasp. Alright, everybody was like... Like that. Okay, and it was just so lovely because you're acknowledging that desire and love has nothing to do with age. Of course. And cinema... Everywhere around the world is notoriously ageist. It is about like... Only young people get to feel a certain way. Shut up, old man. Let's see what it is. It's so interesting that a non-screen kiss is still such a big deal. Yeah. Two great veterans just doing... Performing with absolute aplomb. No questions asked. Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep kissed. They're old. They can't do that. But I've always seen... Firstly, one of my all-time favourites is Abhinaj Aochhodke. Absolutely. And there is no greater love song. Yes, there is. Kintil abhi bhara nahi. So it had to be that song. It had to be their song. Because that's what she says in the dialogue. You know, mall road bebo walks. We both love that song. Our favourite song. It had to be Abhinaj. That became the thematic kind of connection of Rocky and Rani as well. It was just glorious to see them. And to see Dharamji. And you know, at one point I said, let's go man mohan desai on this. He stands up and he sings. And he walks, he's on a wheelchair. But you forget and you don't question it. Oh my God, you're right. Yes, I'm just saying. I never thought of that. And to give a little tiny bit of shock, I have a lot of people looking at him walking like this. But you'll never go there. I won't go there. He's done it. He's looked at him. What happened? How he walked up? He walked up, he only walks up for shabanaji twice. When he sings, aaj mohsam. And when he sang, abhinaj aaj holke. The rest is on a wheelchair. So I'm like, my logic was love makes him walk. You know, love can move mountains. Why can't it make a man walk? And everybody said, logically, I said, you know, is this scene logical? What's happening at this moment? In the middle of a drawing room of a palatial over-the-top dhandhava paradise, this man is singing abhinaj aaj holke to a past love in front of his whole family. And she is singing along, not caring that the wife is also there. So I'm like, there is no logic to the situation. Go with the beauty and romance of it. And maybe we'll get away, you know? And that's how it was. Yeah, yeah. And the lines, Karan. You talked about Ishita being a great writer. But for me, the best line is the Kajini or such. Kajini. Okay, we have fallen off our chairs laughing. But you are inherently very witty. You know, you're a very funny person. How much of you is in these characters? A lot of them. The characterizations are coming in. Like, I've met Rani's of my life. I've seen a lot of Rockies, you know. In the world. A lot of them are somewhere, the other born within me or an observation of mine. You know? A lot of those lines also were like in that part of the writing process. And they came easily because that was the world of the film. But I give full credit to the writers because I was very careful that we needed, while we needed a commercial lens, we also needed a progressive and a woke lens. So it was a great combination of Shashank, who brought in so much of the commerciality into the film. Sumit and Ishita brought so much of the sensibility and the correctness, the political correctness. Ishita was very, very cognizant of the fact that, you know, we can't land up, you know. We are anyway in stereotypical territory. Let's not go wrong in any other way. So it was a great energy of writers that came together. Like I would work with them all together in a heartbeat because they brought so much to the film. But it was worrisome because we were dealing with a lot of characters, you know. So there's even Golu as in Gayathri's character. I've been fat, I've seen that. You've been fat, showing him, you know what that feels like. You know, people just say the most, like I feel when you're very fat or very thin, it's both you get shamed either way. Like I remember my friend Niranjan Aayangar who was very thin telling me. They said, you know, everyone goes on about fat shaming. There's also thin shaming, you know. Because people keep saying you're so thin, you're so thin, it's not a compliment after a point, you know. It's like you're just both shaming and shaming. So I felt like all these characters somewhere came from a part of me or a part of my observation pool. You know, kind of a lot of commentators, a lot of critics have said that this, the film is like that line that Rani thinks for the Lakshmi Ki. So it's Nehi Swad Vahi. Correct. But I would argue that your source has always been Nehi, right? For 25 years, and it's an interesting sort of dissonance in your art that your influences are sort of the kind of Maharatis of commercial mainstream, right? It's Raj Kapoor. It's Yash Chopra. It's Suraj Bajat. I debuted just a few years before you did. But right from the beginning, you've peppered it with, you know, a little sort of hype, right? You've pushed the envelope. Your women have agency. You introduced Queer Love, even if it was just as comedy. You talked about a woman's pleasure in your short. Is this something that you struggle to balance like you're talking about like, you have to have it commercial, but you also have to be politically correct? Because I believe that if you are messaging, if you don't do it in the packaging of a mainstream entertainer, then how are you going to reach so many millions of people? If I made a film like a short, like in the Apartment of Anthology, like I did with last stories, Bombay Talkies, where we talk about, you know, strong repressed sexuality or a woman's right to pleasure. Compared to those, how many people will see that compared to a big mainstream, you know, film? So I think you have to walk that tightrope. Now, when you walk that tightrope, you can even fall off that rope, you know? So I'm like, it's essential that you keep walking on that tightrope and make sure that you don't. So there will be things that you will do that perhaps, like you look back and say, you know, it's all coming with conviction, like at that point of time, when Shruti Jo turns around and completes, Aaj Tha Jeena Ki Tamanna Hai, it's complete. It's a complete, like, what do you say, suspension of belief in that moment, in the drawing room, you see us all. You can laugh at it or you can clap at it. One of the two I know can happen. That's the chance you take. But it's coming from my space of Subhash Kai Conviction, you know, where it's like a rebellion in love and we're singing Ji Ha Ji Baubat Ki, Ki Zamanese Balavat Ki. And, you know, Meenakshi and Jackie sing that in hero. Or you're like, you know, like, Pyaar Karne Waale Kabhi Dhar Ti Nahi, Jag Dhar Ti Hai Wo Pyaar Kar Ti Nahi, and like. I agree. I'm clapping in my head and heart on those sequences. So I'm like, even the song Dindora is actually a leaf of that page. Yes, yes. It had to be just updated. So I was like, I had to do it. I had to just walk that tightrope, but also make sure that if I am messaging, I don't do it in something that may not be viewed in large numbers. But Karan, do you struggle with it as a storyteller when you sit down to create? Do you think about, I can say this, but I can't say that? Good question. Not in this film. I didn't struggle at all. I kind of enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed all of them. I enjoyed their backstories. I enjoyed the people they were. I loved, you know, it was the struggle was where Alia and I had to sit down and say, how do we make this character likable and lovable? Because she can come across over-opinionated. And it's again to Alia's genius that she actually made her character strong, but also vulnerable in love. And she's such a good actor. She's fabulous. She just brought that one. So we struggled internally with projections of performances. But there was never a point where I said, okay, I can't do this, but I can do that. I did everything I know. What did I not do? I went to the mountains for a love song. I did a Bansali old. I did a lip-sync song with all the girls in the industry. I did everything I could have ever asked for. I put up big sets and I could have dancers in abundance. What did I not do? I did everything I love about mainstream Indian cinema. I never pulled any stops at all. Like I went for the jugular. But within that, I felt like there was a story to tell that would be deeply impressionable and hopefully resonant with a large section of society. You know, the other, of course, great sort of propelling force in your cinema is love. You know, like Rocky says, love is love. Right? And all the men and women in your films are yearning for love, getting over love, falling in love. I remember last year when we talked after your birthday, you had said to me that the one regret that you have is that you weren't very mindful of your own personal life. That you didn't sort of pay enough attention to it. And of course, this is completely amateur psychoanalysis. There's a connection between that and the love. That sort of flourishing flamboyant love we see in your films. I think you live vicariously. Cinema filmmakers have that luxury of living vicariously through their, I think, incomplete dreams. You know, the love story that you want in your own life, when that doesn't happen, you have the luxury of living vicariously through your movies. The problem is that I'm only living vicariously. It is like, I'm not being able to translate that into finding my own. You can find love, Kiran. A big love story. And as they say, like you say, age has nothing to do with love. So you never know. At age 51, it might happen. But I'm glad to hear him say that. I don't think you could fall in love in your fifties. Rick, thoughts? Massive platform to express everything that lies within. You know, that, you know, I think cinema really offers that to you, rising, creating content, creating characters, creating those magical looks between two characters. It satiates that void within me, which lies empty right now, you know? And I feel like the love that I express on celluloid is my love story. My love story with cinema is perhaps the biggest love story I'll have. You know, and I may not translate into a functional romance in the real world. But I'm like- Prince said that about his music. You know- He said his songs were his children. Yeah, it was in the beginning. Did he have children? Well, he did. That died very shortly after birth. He moved me. Yeah, very, very tragic. When Rocky is telling Ryan's family that, you know, I am who I am because I don't know better. And you can't cancel everybody out. But there has to be some compassion, you know? We have to allow each other and not judge. Those are not easy thoughts to make accessible, right? These are not conversations we see every day in Hindi cinema. What was the challenge of writing that scene and Ranveer was so good at it? Oh, he was fantastic. I mean, he really, really, really, really worked on that scene for, like, a really, he knew that was his big, big, big moment to write. The thing was, I tried to, in my own way, as a filmmaker and the writers, full credit to them, that scene is full credit to all the writers, to kind of flip the cliched scene into, on its head in some way. So the first thought was, like, of course, he's gonna come and say sorry, but I'm like, collectively, everyone thought, but why should he, not just while saying sorry, even talk about what his pains are like. It's okay that they are offended. But what about the times they offended him? Right, yeah. You know, and why should he not address that? So I'm like, everyone expected, a typical when Total gives his bit, which is warm and beautiful length, when he holds his mother's hand and he says, if there's no gender, then you feel like Rocky will go down and bended knees apologize, end of scene. That's not who Rocky is, though. That's not who I ever saw Rocky as. I saw Rocky saying that I screwed up, I messed up. But what about you guys? Like, I don't know better. Like, I'm old, old, I can't say black, I can't say black, he says, you know? I'm scared to open my mouth, which is actually in that house, that is what it is. And this is truly identifiable to a gazillion people. Absolutely. I have to keep lecturing my mother about these things, because all wrong words come out, you know? I do it with my husband. Yeah, so I'm like, yeah, well, your husband a lot more than I think my mother would. He used to be schooled. But you know, I just feel like at the end of the day, terminology is something that we have trained, not because we created that terminology, that's the surrounding that we grew up in. Now, if someone was fat, people call it me fat. Nobody, now today, in an interview, we'll say plus size. We'll say vertically challenged. Correct. But we never said any of this. We'll say visually challenged. We don't say, you know, you know, audibly challenged. You just keep saying different terms because you're not, you're so scared to offend. So that scene, I think, resonated with people. They're like, hey, he's in Chinese, but Chinese, you can't say Chinese, you can't say Chinese. He's like, yeah, how do I order? He's from Marshall's neighbouring country. He's like, he's a crispy chicken, like, like, because he was like, and then that goes with that scene, had to be turned on his head. And he said, you think, you laugh at me. Correct. You know, sir, eventually, anyway, I don't speak English either, right? English language, and you laugh. That's also shaming, right? You also be, also language shaming me, so. And then of course, he apologises, of course. But I said, it has to start in a way that you should laugh. That was my dream. I said, the first thing you should do is that you're singing so sober, calm, but let's bring in laughter before we go into emotion. And that was my endeavour in a lot of the scenes, is to break it. But that scene, for the people who understand it, it's a cancel culture scene. But for the people who may not know about cancel culture, we're still looking at it as, this is the right mode, man. Right. You know, this is right. This happens with us, too. Correct. You know, people get offended easily, because there are so many houses in this country that will say that they can't drink tea. Yes. Why is fairness cream such a huge deal in this country? Because skin colour is strong. But that's ridiculous. You can be gorgeous in any colour. You know, and the communication is what I also believe in. I come from that sad space in my head. But terminology, even I struggle with it. You know, like, I also have to be corrected sometimes, you know. And now I am so within the zone of... Political correctness. Political correctness, that I think 300 times before, you know, I'm speaking, you know, I'm saying anything that would offend anyone, because I'll become like, immediately I'll know that anyway the problems are, you know, everything. Then already I have an army that hate me. I don't want to move further, larger army that will arrive along with the existing army anyway. So I'm like, okay, well, yeah, like, you know, I'll better watch my words. But, Karan, I felt that in the second half, indeed the narrative did wobble under the messaging. Yeah. Did you recognise that? How challenging was it to come to fit in? I think it was challenging. Nitin Beth is a genius editor. Yeah. Genius editor. I mean, he's just such a... It was very difficult, I know. We tried very hard, because there were two men, there were 10 principal characters, and each needed closure, each... I like that she said the narrative wobbled under the messaging. And it was very tough to package the elements of humour and say what you need to. I did realise that we were struggling to get the edit to be what it was. Sometimes, you know, you will have to keep some of that wobbliness or bloatedness, because if you lose some of that, because you know, if I had to sit academically with you and I say, okay, I know you sit with me, I'll remove this, but will you feel this there, Lin? Yeah. I'll remove this here, I'll take this out. But then will you feel the impact of that? Everything had a payoff. Right. It was very difficult for me to take anything out beyond what it would be. The film was three hours and ten minutes long. Really? And we've got 22 minutes of the film. And I was completely useless, as was Nitin. And I said, Nitin, tell me if I'm keeping something I should. And in fact, he made me add things back. I was actually cutting even more. Why did you truncate the songs? Did you sing to... I did, they're shocking. I know, but why? Did you think people wouldn't... No, because I know that you get on with it. Like, there's so many songs, watch it on YouTube. I mean, it's there for you. And now I'm showing in our Amazon version, we'll have the songs. Right. I had to... The most beautiful song is Kudmahi, which is the last end credit song. It's in a Dabba. I mean, I feel so bad. But that's because I'm like, I don't care, I want the length belong to 50. It has to be to 48. It has to be to 48. So we had to... The end credits are put together, but we had to put the song... Clearly not from the school of Martin Scorsese. And then end credits, I would have been at 250. So I'm like, I was really combating, you know, those optics. Just the length. See, that's the time the producer and the director fight, right? And I'm the producer and director. I was fighting with myself, right? I was not going to say like, Oh, screw you, I don't care. I'm not that person. I'm like, no, I care. I care. You know, I care about how the film performs in the box office, which is why we run a studio. As you should, you are the producer. Right. Commercial length as well. Never at the cost of possibly communicating what you have to. But some decisions like this were taken to kind of tighten the song. The songs are all beautiful and long, and I hope you get to see them on YouTube. They're all there. But when the music first dropped, it was not appreciated. Right? Yeah, I remember that. And truthfully, I think, Eid al-Ahmushkil was such an iconic album that anything will pale in comparison. And, you know, so people were very critical. Ah, but this is like this. This is like that. What was, what have you taken away from that? So the thing is that you can't compare the music of Eid al-Ahmushkil to the music of Rocky Rani, only because Eid al-Ahmushkil has heart-breaking, heart-wrenching songs because that's that film. This is a celebration film. And let me tell you, this music will all start picking up now because you'll have context. And the melodies are beautiful. I still believe Pritam is a genius. Amitabh Bhattacharya is a genius. Whether the songs are- That's what that guy looks like. Pritam is the first time I've ever seen his face. Yeah. The song Sonu Nasaam, the critical part happens in the film. Looks nothing like Big Big. Suddenly when the album is dropped and you hear it, you start liking those movies, the songs now. Initially there's too much pressure. You're waiting to feel that your first song is going to, you know, top the charts and you know, not every song can these days. It's tough. It's a really tough, crowded market of non-film and film and one song breaks to suddenly you don't know why you think so. I feel all the music, I'm very proud of the music of the film. And I believe that I never bought into the criticism because I probably believe the music is strong. You just needed the film to kind of, you know, take it further. You'll find yourself humming those songs now. Yeah. And you will, and those songs will have a life of their own and they will have a long shelf life. They just needed the film. Like that's why I'm feeling like none of our communication before this actually landed. It didn't. I was going to ask you. But it didn't. And there was all that criticism of the chemistry. He chemistry in again. It was good in the song too. There was sort of this backflip of his hair flip. I mean, I didn't even notice and I was like, did he really need to say, okay, maybe I saw it later. And there was a direct comparison with obviously Shah Rukh. See, now, how can you live up to that, right? But I still wanted to, you know, satisfy my urge to do Kashmir and shoot a love song. I'm like, now he will do a comparison. Of course he will. I'm going to do it again. With Shah Rukh and Gajal now, with these actors and you can't, Shah Rukh is a legend. He created love in cinema. He created. And he had an iconic love pair. How can you even compare? You can't compare. But should I take away the fact that I don't know? I don't want to not do the song. I want to do it. I'll try my best. You'll buy and do it eventually is my hope. So chemistry was, I was like, there's a problem on chemistry, there's an issue on music. You know, they're feeling that this is not a silly film, it's not stupid. Then I just felt that I'm not being able to communicate. I had many concerned people messaging me and saying, why this is not working, that is not working. I'm like. Also, it's a dream sequence at that point. Yeah, I never understood those criticisms of that song, man. Which you don't know till you see the film contextually, which we always say that when we act it was on. Maybe I've said that many times, maybe I'll like it more when I see the film. An onslaught of being hated. It gives you a very strong resilience. Yeah. I feel like. Especially all three of you in this movie. I get to come for all of those weeks. It's the week before. That had nothing to do with actually all the criticism to the chatter. That was not what was getting to me. What got to me was the fact that, oh my God, the film is going to be out. And some way I know, I have to say that I needed the validation. I was feeling very vulnerable as an artist, as a human being, and as a person who's been in the industry long enough. I somehow felt like I needed this validation. I felt like I was. You are an artist though. I needed it. Like, you know, it's like your body needs sugar. You know, you're sometimes just, you know, when your pressure is low. I felt like that validation was my sugar. It needed to kind of pump up because I've been, it's just been a weird couple of years. And while we all put up a great show, you know, when we walk out into the world, there are, there is so much going on within, you know, me and my heart and my head that needed some sense of validation. And feeling will I get it or not is what gave me the anxiety for the release. I was in, as I was, the head of this interview, I said, I'm struggling, I literally was. I was shaking. I wasn't sleeping. I was like up at night, staring at my ceiling or what, trying to watch something that was just 20 years. But I was just up and my closest friend. Makes sense. And I literally, for the first time, reached out to people and said, can you just be with me for these four, five years? That's great. Glad you reached out. I had like three or four like strong army members. Should always reach out. I just love his, he's always so transparent and honest. Yeah. Because I was like a baby. Because I was, I told it, I found myself just weeping. Like at every given point of time, I was crying. Like, and I was like tears were rolling down and they didn't even know what to do with me. You know, because I'm this big boy, a 51 year old man crying for no reason. Like, you know, I was like shivering. Like at the cast and crew trial, there was so many people at PBR and I went up to the room and I just sat and wept. I don't know why I just wept. And then I'm with my friend up to Arthi Shetty, Pooja. They all just came into, we had one group hug and they said, why are you feeling you've made such a good film? They kept saying, I said, no, I don't know. I can't express it. I can't show this side to my mom either. You know, because my mother feeds them more. My mother feeds off my mood. Like, I'm happy she's happy. Like that's the way it is. And I'm like, I can't show this vulnerable side to my children. They're too young to my mom, what am I gonna do? And I'm like, and Apura was so strong. He was like a pillar. He would just keep coming to me and saying like, you know, don't worry. Why are you worried? Why are you getting so hype? I was like, so I only had love. You know, I had so much love. When did you breathe? This morning. This morning. This morning. This morning when I was sitting and getting ready to come to you and Eka Rocky, Eka La Ghani walked in and she said, the thing that she walked in with her. So much love and I know the love was pouring in and all that. I was like, I said, yeah, I said, yeah, how do you feel? I said, I said, I feel happy today. I feel happy today. I was like, I said, I'll breathe today. I literally Monday, whatever the date is today, I don't even know, I'm so lost. 31st is the day I took a deep breath and I said, I think it's going to be okay. It is. You've done more than okay. No, but I'm like, I see, I don't go by statistics or it's my own feeling. I feel so happy. I feel so happy with all the Pyaar. Like, you know, I feel like, what do I say? Can I just hold your hands? That's so lovely. Yeah, I just, I don't know how to react to this love. Like, I'm just so like, wow, that's how it is. You know, I was like, there's no better way of saying it. God, I'm getting emotional, but I'm really saying it. It's like, it just felt like. It's so nice. It's so nice. And it is so lovely. It really is. I have one more question. Where do they live after marriage? Pratyush, Pratyush, my colleague needs to know this. Sure. Very, very absolutely valid question to ask. I definitely think that Rani would not move into Ramakant. And I definitely think that the strategies would be okay with the fact that they would move. I think that the setup that they would move into a separate home, because now they get along with each other's families well enough for them to create a world of their own. So in my head, neither does Rocky move to Rani's, neither does Rani move to Rocky's. They have a place of their own. But in my head, I think Rani would do that place up. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not so sure she would depend on Rocky's strategies. Probably not. My, also my, well, you see that Rocky would not stop being Rocky. You know, we discussed like a part two. Really? We used to chat about it. Rani, Alia, Rani, Alia, Rani and me. And they were like, what's got to be a story? Because these two deserve a spin-off. You know? And I'm like, okay, who knows? You know, we imagined a story. We actually have a kind of a story, but we don't know. I mean, this was too nascent of thought. But definitely I see Rocky and Rani living somewhere in Delhi, but away from their parents. Because now they're going to get a vaccine, driving is being done by the family. They're okay. Because they're at least in control of the front seat. Yeah, yeah. And what are you doing next? Holiday? I am going to sleep for many days. I mean, I will come. There's no sleep, Anu. I have films releasing. I have shows that are on there. I have to do coffee with Karan. I have to do lots of things. Are we getting another season? Yeah. Now you're done with one note of yours. I don't know if anyone noticed. Nobody noticed that I was absent for four months. Like I took a sabbatical, like perform once. And then I just think that people don't realize because I'm always everywhere. You're always there for you. But I was not there anyway. I was trying and I was wearing black and all full. Like you were not seeing. This was your low time. Yes. I was keeping it low. My orange juice just came out today. Like I'm like, I was keeping it low. Why was this? You see nobody notices. Did you miss that my low key and like my complete low key, like staying away, not doing media, you know, not going with Doki and Rani to any city visits. No one noticed my absence. I'm very upset. You know what I'm saying? I know he, he took marketing life and just went down the drain just now. Because I was like somebody must have noticed what we noticed it. You know, I was like... Only present Karan. Yeah, but I wasn't anywhere. Like I didn't go anywhere. Now that I'm seeing it, of course, now you're on. Now the penny's dropping. I didn't go anywhere. And they were like, I said, no, no. I said, we will come out if the film gets lost. And they're really going to be coming out now. And please do consider my idea of the fashion line of Rocky and Rani. Rocky and Rani need a fashion line. They, they have... I mean, Marish Malhotra tells me that he has never received so many messages in his entire life. I want anything. And I don't even know how to wear a saree. No, but like he's like, Karan, what is going on? Yeah. Like people are talking about the sarees in serious reviews. Like in serious reviews, the sarees are being mentioned. Rocky's wardrobe is of course being talked about for various reasons. Yes. Like, his designer wear somehow has equaled additional humour in the film. Absolutely. Like, who else would match? The car and the goat. The car and the goat. It was a car. And I have to tell you, that was a happy accident but we're taking credit for it. Fuck. Because I was only on set. And we're like, oh. It was a... So we'll be doing a Rocky and Rani line. It's a good idea. And in terms of films, Karan, are you thinking of anything else? I'm writing. Writing with a couple of writers. Ideating between two strings. I don't want to take a long gap again. Yeah, don't worry. What is this, seven years and all? See, two and a half years to manage the ducts. Yeah. And then two years to the pandemic. Which will get made. Yes. Of course. It's a passion project. But I'm writing and developing. I'm thinking. I'm absorbing. I'm ideating. All of that. But I will take a long gap. This time I need to be back on set because that's where I feel I really belong. Yeah. Good. Thank you. And congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you. This is so lovely. Great interview as always. She does a good job. Yeah. We've said it before. And I'm sure we'll say it over and over again. He's such a sweet man. He is. And I feel like the man you see in these interviews is the man you'd see if you were sitting down and having breakfast with him or, you know, you'd taken a walk in the park. I feel like there's no pretension. What you see is what you get. Yeah. And such a sweet, sweet man. I love the parts we got really personal about. Yeah. It's my favorite part. About his anxiety. Yeah. And needing to reach out to people. Always reach out. And admitting that for him the film he needed the validation. Even though they won't admit it, that's most artists. That's why a lot of theater actors love theater so much. It's instant gratification, hopefully. If it's good or it's also instant regret as well. No, you do. If it's not good. You do. I mean, that is the barometer by which you're measuring whether or not what you're doing is having an impact, is how well it's received or not. I still love doing what you do. Of course. But it's always better when you get the validation. 100% better. And you're always nervous. Everybody's human. Yeah. You're always nervous as to whether you're auditioning or whether the project's done. You're always very nervous because you want it to be good and you want others to think it's good. You don't want it to be bad. And when you're helming something like this, I'm sure the pressure on him was huge when you add what a monumentally huge empath he is with his heart on his sleeve. I'm not surprised that he was just crying nonstop and could hardly go to premieres. Yeah. I'm happy for him. I love the story about him dancing to these songs when he was a kid and his father being accepting of that. That's one as the father should do. It's sad that it's not a lot of people's story. It really is. That they want to be themselves and then they get pressured by the parents or family members or friends when they're younger and to being ashamed of trying to be who they are. He brought that into the story as well. It was really, really lovely. I was sad that we didn't have subs for there. I know. There was so much, I feel like a lot of English going on back and forth and then out of Hindi. It was mostly when they were talking about dialogue from the movie that they said in the dialogue. Right, right, right. The movie, obviously. So it makes sense. I just wish I got some references of what they were talking about. It was a lovely interview. I really appreciated the film, obviously, for many different reasons. If you haven't seen our review, obviously watch that to see what Rick said about the stuff he didn't like as much as I did. Lexi watched it with us too and she gives her opinion as well. She said she was a little in the middle of both of us. But it was also really strange and something that you just don't think about because as an audience, you don't have to is the fact that he has to... The film was 310 and it ended up being 250. So he cut 20 minutes of this film. Yeah. And also some parts of the songs. Because as an audience, you don't have to think about that because you're not the editor, you're not the director. But they definitely have to think about it because they have to know if a film is lacking or not. Obviously, as we've said many times, one of the worst things a film can do is bore you. And so they had to... He thought he had to cut a lot of it. And as they... I guess in PS2 or PS1, I felt like he had to cut the songs as well. Which is weird. Don't do that, Manny. Because those songs were absolutely brilliant. But also it was really interesting what he said about Ranveer in this. One, I'd love to know the backstory of how that happened. It's obviously different because when you're the lead in a film, it actually does happen a lot where you're learning the lines basically before because you have so many and they don't film in sequence. And so that actually happens a lot on set. They don't learn the lines verbatim for this three-hour film front to back. They get the shooting schedule. No, and sometimes that can happen. It can happen. It shouldn't happen. You're going to get a call sheet, I presume. I don't know how the Indian film industry works. I assume it's pretty comparable. But you're going to get a breakdown of what the shooting schedule is going to look like beforehand but the definitive of what you're going to do because it'll change based on what you get accomplished each day. You're going to get a call sheet that night. They'll probably email you the call sheet and it'll show you what's happening. But even when you get the call sheet, two things can change. You'll show up to set and be given some different colored pages that are replaced pages in the shot that day because the writers made some changes and you're sitting in the makeup chair and they go, here are the news lines for today's scene. The other thing that's going to happen that apparently did is you get a call sheet for what we're filming and then you show up and it's not the day you thought it was going to be. They made a change. What's interesting about it is that it wasn't that he didn't know his lines. He knew his lines is that he wasn't mentally prepared mentally prepared and thankfully for the scene that we're doing which makes sense and also love that for Ranveer as an actor, the fact that he's like, I need this prep space. I'm always reminded of Tick Tick Boom and Andrew Garfield getting the call sheet for the first day and it's the climactic moment for him not giving anything away. And when he's talking to Lynn, Lynn is giving him all of these deep reasons as to why they're filming it. And Andrew looks at him and says, we're filming this because this is the day you got the permit for Central Park. He said, yeah, that's exactly why we're filming today. But the fact that Ranveer needed that prep time to get his head space correct. And obviously Karen being the director and producer is still allowed to do whatever he wants. He's the one funding this. And the unsurprising seriousness for everybody who gets upset with us about our love for Ranveer as a thespian, did you hear all of the comments about how seriously Ranveer took this role? This could easily have been something where he just did look at the character and go, oh, it's me. I'm going to phone this in and take a nice payday. And he doesn't do that. He takes all of his roles, I think, as seriously as any actor possibly can. I think he took this no less seriously than he did his role in Padmavad. Oh, yeah. No less seriously. Also, it was probably a more difficult role. In many respects. In comedy. Yes, in many respects. Because this can, that, like we've said many times, comedy is way harder than drama. Especially when you are a big, bombastic Karen. Exactly. Which you'll see, if you haven't seen the review, that's the primary thing for me was I had no problems at all with Ranveer and Ali. In fact, I liked Ranveer and Ali. For me, it was what she had mentioned about, in particularly the second half of the narrative that she said wobbled by reason of some other choices that were made. And that's just mine and a very small handful of people because I've read a couple of reviews. The majority of people love this film. I'm one of them. I had some beautiful stupid babies who have their wits about them and are mature point out, just send me messages of how much they adore the movie and it's what they were waiting for and it just rekindled so much of their right. And that made me very happy and neither one of us were mad and pointing out to the other person why you were wrong. It's just, that was what you like and this is what I like. I just thought it in my head. Yeah, exactly. Which is what you're supposed to do. Yeah. Inner monologue. You're a fucking idiot. Outer monologue. You're allowed to have your opinion. Of course, see how that works. Anyways, sorry about that. The battery died. Okay. Said it was exhausted. Yeah. We're basically done with what we're talking about. I just wanted to come back and say goodbye. Hold on. The microphone stopped too. Good Lord. Whatever. I think all the equipment is exhausted. I'll just end it.