Yash Raj Films’ ‘Band Baajaa Baaraat’ released on 10th December, bringing yet another fun-filled family adventure of glitter, masti and love! Anushka Sharma unravels here the film’s essence, shares titbits about her character Shruti Kakkar, her co-star, newbie Ranveer and director Maneesh Sharma.
How did you feel when Manish read you the script of Band Baaja Baaraat?
I am a sucker for romantic comedies. I love romcoms. Ever since I became an actress, which was not very long ago, I wanted to do a romantic comedy but I don’t see such films being made in our country like something I can fall in love with. I fell in love with this script as soon as it was narrated to me. When Maneesh narrated the script to me I did not realize how those three/three and a half hours passed.
I was completely engrossed because Maneesh’s narration was lovely. His understanding of the characters was great. He was narrating exactly how he wanted the characters to say the dialogues. After the narration I didn’t find it important to tell him that I loved the script and wanted to do it or didn’t want to do it.
Tell us about your character, Shruti Kakkar:
Shruti could be a girl from any Indian city – Delhi, Bangalore, Nagpur, Mumbai. She wants to do a lot in life. She has many goals, is very ambitious and she is a very principled and well brought up kid from a loving close family. She is somebody who can talk to her parents about anything under the sun… about boys and about her problems just anything and everything.
She’s that person and in spite of Shruti being so meticulous and so systematic in life, whether it was college or in life, she is so studious. Her goal to be a wedding planner was perhaps set from the third wedding she ever attended with her parents when she had decided that I want to be part of these huge weddings, this glamour and I wanted to be making it in this world.
She will always do the right things, she is very gutsy and very endearing and she is very cool and that’s what I love about her. She has guts and it’s very enjoyable to see her… I was always smiling reading about her in the script.
How did you prepare for this role – the world of wedding planners and the world of a Delhi girl?
We play wedding planners but that’s not the film – it’s just the backdrop. It’s a love story. As much as we needed to know about the planners was provided in the script as Maneesh and Habib Faisal (Screenplay & Dialogue writer) had researched extensively. What I really worked on was speaking in a way a Delhi girl would talk.
I am from Bangalore and I had to learn a certain lingo. I had to cut out the pauses in between words and talk fast but make sure so people can understand what you are saying and we had enough readings with Maneesh for that. I used to underline my script to cut out pauses to get the hang of the language and lingo.
Tell us about Maneesh Sharma:
I met Maneesh for the first time during my auditions for RNBDJ – he was playing table tennis and was sweating when I first saw him! He was the Associate Director. We became friends that very day we got along that day itself, because I was very scared of Adi initially, Maneesh was the medium between us. So we became friends.
Maneesh is one of the five people I know in Bombay ever since I have been here. Maneesh understands me, he understands my gestures and the things I do with my hands, my face, my eyes like anything, some of my movements that even I am not aware of he had observed me and he could take that out and make it a part of Shruti’s characteristics. It was lovely working with Maneesh.
Tell us about Ranveer Singh & his character Bittoo:
When I was called for the narration I was informed there was a new guy in the room and I was kind of thinking he will be this new guy in the movie. So I met Ranveer for the first time at the reading. RV is not a very normal guy. He’s not the kind of guy I have met or come around.
When he came into the room he had his ipod on and was grooving to the music. I don’t think he knew he was meeting me. Maneesh just told him you will be meeting your co actor so without a care in the world he just walks in and says hey wassup and that’s the impression I have about Ranveer. He doesn’t care about anything.
He’s focused like he was there for a reading and he was completely unperturbed about what was happening around him and that’s the impression of Ranveer I have even today. Bitto is everything that Shruti is not… but when they come together it’s like a jigsaw puzzle. When they come together it seems all right… all the friction they have generates spark and that spark is so attractive to watch.
Bittoo had to be very well cast, the film is about these two characters and these two people completely embody the characters and Ranveer is the most correct choice for this role. Ranveer is Bittoo and Bittoo is Ranveer.
