The Romantics (2023) s01e03 Episode Script
The New Guard
Uh, so I grew up
with films being made around me.
And, uh, my father was a producer.
And my uncle,
Mr. Nasir Hussain, was a producer,
leading director and producer of his time.
I belong to a film family.
[mellow music playing]
We're in the fourth generation of actors.
I have flirted around
the film set, you know, while growing up.
Just spending time with my father.
My grandfather, my father, my uncles.
Maternal and paternal.
My mother, my grandmother, my aunt…
My sister-in-law, my wife,
my nieces, my son, we are all actors.
My mother was in movies
in the, uh, '60s and '70s.
I grew up on film sets.
Both my parents are actors.
[Hrithik Roshan] I was a filmmaker's son
and I thought, "That's what I have to do.
I've to grow up and be in the films."
I think I was born into the lineage,
I was born into a family of dance.
My dad and Yash Uncle
were colleagues in their time.
Yashji and my father
had worked a lot together.
-[chuckles]
-My father was a filmmaker also.
So basically, our association
with Yash Raj has been
from way back before we were even born.
I never told anyone
that my father made Hindi films.
I told them he was a businessman.
I was almost apologetic about it.
I am doing a show for Netflix, which is…
And both my son and daughter are in there.
And I feel really proud to say,
"Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire?"
They're like, "Yeah!"
I'm like, "I'm that guy's nephew."
Now we're all very comfortable
working with each other. It's great fun.
Nepotism.
Uh…
So, yeah, this nepotism debate,
which, which, uh… which is,
uh, which has really flared up
in the past year or so is, uh…
uh, is unfortunate.
[solemn music playing]
I think about 20, 25, 30 years back,
the industry was definitely smaller.
And because of that,
it was just very natural
for a child to aspire
to do the same business
as the, you know, the parent.
Which, actually, was true
in most Indian businesses
or most Indian families or whatever.
I think one of the things
that people tend to ignore
is, like, every person who comes
from a certain privileged background,
uh, be it a family lineage,
or be it friends,
or be it what they sort of call
the "insiders" of the film industry,
everyone is not successful.
I can articulate it
without mentioning other people.
I can just articulate it
mentioning my own family.
My brother is an actor,
and he's not a very successful actor.
Now, here is the son
of one of the biggest filmmakers,
he's a brother of a very big filmmaker.
Imagine a company like YRF,
that has probably launched
the most newcomers,
and we could not make him a star.
Why could we not do it for our own?
Because the bottom line is
only an audience will decide,
"I like this person,
I want to see this person."
No one else can decide that.
[opening theme music playing]
[slow percussive music playing]
[interviewer] We're gonna talk about Uday.
You friends with him?
I love him the most
[chuckling] in the whole family, I think.
All right, make me look good, okay?
Uday is the finest soul.
[Hrithik] I think, uh,
Uday has a personality that is…
I think the most successful
personality of all of us.
[chuckling] This is… this is good,
I… I could live with this.
Uday was and is still,
if I may say so, my teddy bear.
A lot of my childhood happy memories
are all associated with him.
I was like a, they call "bhola."
Like, very, like, innocent.
I was very chilled out, actually.
I was always, like, a chubby kid,
and my brother
was like the skinny, athletic one.
And he would love bugging me.
I was more into my own world, in my own…
In fact,
I created my own country in my head.
It's called "Ankert."
And I had a whole history
of how it came about.
You know, this immigrant from Greece,
and then there's this dictator.
It was like a democratic monarchy.
For some reason,
I don't know, it just stuck.
[Aditya Chopra] For a long time, everybody
knew what I was going to do in life.
For a long time,
we didn't know what Uday was going to do.
And Uday was exploring.
He had gone to UCLA.
He had gone… He was exploring, you know?
[muffled shouting]
[Uday Chopra] Adi was very clear
that he wanted to be a filmmaker.
I was very interested in acting,
and I was always performing in school.
So in my mind,
I knew that's what I wanted to do.
But I was a little embarrassed
about actually
admitting to people that I wanted to act.
I knew that you had to look a certain way,
you had a certain, you know, height,
and a certain hair,
and a certain kind of a…
I don't know, you know, persona.
I knew I didn't have that.
In my heart I was like,
"Oh, my God, how am I going to tell people
this is what I want to do?"
For me, it was a complete surprise
that Uday was thinking of being an actor,
and I think, for some reason,
he just kept it like a big secret.
When we came to know
that he actually wants to act
uh, it was a surprise to me. I would've
never seen him, uh, as an actor.
And that's the time
I was writing Mohabbatein,
and obviously,
this was my next film after Dilwale,
so it was a big thing.
Ready, camera!
-[man 1] 24 by eight, plus ten.
-[woman] Take four.
-[man 2] Take one.
-[man 3] Action!
[Mohabbatein theme playing]
[Uday] The cool thing about my family
was that even though I said,
"This is what I want to do,"
it wasn't like,
"Oh, you're gonna get a movie."
Like, my brother was like,
"Okay, fine, but you got to test."
"I wanna see if you're
really good in front of the camera."
"Because if you're not,
then there's no point."
[upbeat music playing]
Hi, I'm Uday Chopra.
I play Vicky in Mohabbatein.
Vicky is basically
a very happy-go-lucky kind of guy.
He's… You know, he's, uh…
He sees the world
through rosy-colored filter, you know.
[wind whistling]
[anklet jingling]
[Jaideep Sahni] Mohabbatein was
also very significant
because there were six newcomers
being launched in the film.
[upbeat music playing]
[Uday] What my brother insisted on,
and he prepared us really a lot
before we went on set.
He actually put us through
his own acting school.
I'm Anand Yadav, from UP.
[all swishing]
[Uday] And my brother had this idea
that if you can't act in a song
and be really, like, charming and good,
you're not gonna make it in Hindi movies.
Because songs were such a huge part.
He would say, like, every week,
to do one song on camera.
-[upbeat music continues]
-[dance instructor shouting indistinctly]
[Uday] And we would do this
week after week after week.
Song after song after song.
Normal people go like two, three days,
and they pick up a few steps.
We were practicing
for over a month. On each song.
So the first day when I went on set,
I was, like,
really comfortable in my skin.
I… I thought,
"I've been doing this all my life."
Like, it was so easy for me.
It's, I think, my second or third day
when I had to face Mr. Bachchan.
And there's a shot in Mohabbatein
where I'm coming late and he catches me.
And that was
the first time I'm facing him.
[thunder crashes]
And I didn't sleep that night.
I was, like, so nervous.
He gives it all. Like, he's there.
He's present. He's looking into your eyes.
[Narayan Shankar chanting in Sanskrit]
Salutation to the Lord.
[captivating music playing]
Salutation to the Lord.
Salutation to the Lord.
[Tanul Thakur in English]
Amitabh Bachchan, he reunites
with Yash Raj Films
after a gap of 19 years.
And he was paired opposite Shah Rukh Khan,
which was a kind of coming together
that had not happened before.
Shah Rukh Khan, by then,
was a big, big deal.
And scenes between the two in the movie
make for some electrifying chemistry.
[in Hindi] I request you
to please take over
the responsibility of Gurukul.
[Amitabh in English]
My reaction when I first heard the script
was absolutely spellbinding.
[Mohabbatein theme playing]
I have virtually seen
Adi Chopra born in front of me.
He was a little baby in arms
when I was working in the film Deewaar.
And to then be sitting in front of him
and listening to a narration
to absolute perfection,
was an experience
that I have not felt in my entire career.
[in Hindi] It was not Priya, Papa.
[Yash Chopra in English]
Mohabbatein is dearest to me.
[in Hindi] Who was that?
[Yash in English] It is
the second film of Aditya.
A confirmation
of him as a brilliant director.
It was the first film of Uday.
His first stepping-stone
towards his career.
-[grunts]
-[captivating music playing]
[Uday] That was really validation.
Like, "You know what, I could do this."
You know, maybe
I have a career here or something.
I could pursue a dream
that not many people get,
you know, the chance to do so.
That validation made me feel really good
and gave me a lot of confidence.
[serene music playing]
[Aditya] I was privileged
that I was already given
a huge start by my father.
My father was so successful,
he literally gave me
everything on a platter.
I was just lucky, you know.
Now, if I do not take this head start
and make something out of it,
I would actually not be doing justice
to, uh, the opportunity.
So I think that was my drive.
How do I put Yash Raj Films
on the map of the world?
[mellow music playing]
So Yash Raj Films predominantly
was, uh, the topmost production house
and we used to do one film in two years.
And then I started involving myself
a little bit more in the business.
Honestly, I didn't have any, uh, learning.
It was just instinct.
So my logic was simple
that if we're a production house
and we now know how
to produce films, let's do more of that.
And let's see
where it takes me as a producer.
[Madhuri Dixit] Since very young,
when we started working together,
that's when, uh…
He's a very thinking kind of a person.
And, um…
also not just very creative,
but also understands
the business of making films.
And I remember Mujhse Dosti Karoge!
was a very important film.
I… I… I believe that film is
very important in my career as a producer.
Because that's the film
I didn't want to make.
[in Hindi] I can't do all this rubbish.
Tina, I've done a lot
for you since childhood.
Just leave it to Tina.
Okay, now you tell me, how does Raj look?
[Aditya in English] It was the first film
that we were trying to produce
which was coming out
of this multiple-film studio
that we wanted to become.
The idea was to launch
new directors with new voices.
Mujhse Dosti Karoge! began with this
desire in me to make a Hindi film.
And a good friend of mine,
Karan Johar, had an idea of a film.
And I started writing.
-[melodious music playing]
-[vocalizing]
[Aditya] The story is a simple story
about a guy
falling in love with the soul of a girl,
but mistaking that soul for somebody else.
[in Hindi] You never wrote letters to me?
If I did, would you have replied to me
the same way you did to Tina's letters?
Now what's this?
[Aditya in English] And then finally,
when he realizes who it is,
he has to choose,
okay, now what does he do?
Does he stick to the girl
that he kind of professed his love for,
but actually, those were not her thoughts
or her emotions that he fell in love with…
[in Hindi] Tina is not different
from her letters.
[Aditya in English]
…or does he, you know, go with the girl
who he believes he really loves?
[in Hindi] Tina is different
from the letters that you wrote for her.
[in English] So ultimately, what it means
is that this is a film
where the end is about
"Who will get the guy?"
[in Hindi] If you were with us…
[in English] I always react to any story
or any material as an audience first.
And as an audience, I felt
I'm not sure I'm going to like this.
[in Hindi] One is my love
and the other is my friend.
[Aditya in English] This is not going
to work because I think audiences
have moved away
from these triangles where…
"Which girl will the guy go to?"
[in Hindi] You are Tina, right?
[in English] We did it in 1997 last
in Dil To Pagal Hai.
I think that was pretty much the peak.
Karan did it in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,
I said, "Where are we gonna take this?"
Action!
[Aditya] Now, what happened was that, uh,
my father loved the script,
my mother loved the script.
Like, Hrithik Roshan was the top star
at that time, he said yes.
So I said, "My God, I really,
I'm not seeing what they're seeing,
so probably my thinking is not correct."
[in Hindi] Nowadays everybody
Is discussing our love ♪
Really? ♪
Everybody knows… ♪
[Aditya in English] Then, of course,
we got two really good girls on board.
The film was a really big film.
And the film didn't do well.
[somber music playing]
It was the best thing
that could've happened to me.
Because that film didn't do well,
I was clear that the next slate,
I want to do pretty much
the way I see films.
And I'm… It's okay if I'll fail.
But let me try and do the next slate
a little more hands-on.
[Uday] Once Adi kind of proved
that he is a talent,
and his ideas are,
I think, relevant today,
my father
started taking him a lot more seriously.
You know, before then, he was like,
"He's my son, I've to train him."
But with DDLJ, he broke the mold.
Because a lot of the things
my father wanted, Adi didn't do.
And he proved that that was working.
So he felt that now
he needs my brother's point of view
because he knows,
you know, what the youth want.
[Aditya] And my dad was letting me,
now, kind of take the decisions.
My first slate of films
which carried my name as a producer
was in the year 2004,
and it was Hum Tum, Dhoom and Veer-Zaara.
[in Hindi] Karan, I thought
we're taking this tour together?
[in English] So?
[in Hindi] Why do guys
always walk ahead of girls?
Or why are girls always a step behind?
[Aditya in English] Hum Tum was a script…
When we had signed Hrithik Roshan
for Mujhse Dosti Karoge!,
we had to wait one year for his dates.
So Kunal started writing
this Hum Tum script at that time,
and he gave me
a few pages and I said, "Oh, God…"
I was so excited.
[in Hindi] Marriage is
the end of love and romance.
Does he know what love and romance is?
He's talking of marriage!
[Aditya in English]
My father didn't get the script.
So I told him, I said,
"Dad, please allow me to make this."
"You give me a budget,
I'll make it on that."
So he said,
"Okay, make it in eight crores."
[upbeat song playing]
[Tanul] Hum Tum is a much younger film.
It's a film released in 2004.
DDLJ was a 1995 film.
So you can see
that a lot of these urban realities
around modern relationships have changed.
The sense of sexual chemistry
comes really naturally to the leads.
Saif Ali Khan is
very evidently metrosexual,
a word that was, uh, everywhere that year.
[in Hindi] I'll never figure why
She isn't like a guy ♪
I'll never figure why
She isn't like a guy ♪
[Aditya in English] And I found it fresh,
I found it, uh, funny,
and I found it
very relevant for contemporary India.
You know? And it kind of,
uh, put Saif Ali Khan
on the map as a leading man.
[Saif Ali Khan] He called me
to his office and he said,
"Listen, Shah Rukh Khan
is doing these large movies for me."
Um, and he's a certain kind
of movie star, you know.
He's saying, "After him,
I don't see anybody else
doing this kind of young love story."
[in Hindi] Look, when love is requited
there's no story to be told.
[Saif in English]
"You know, and you're a kid,
and you should
focus on this kind of thing,
and there's this new chain of theaters
that are coming up, called the multiplex."
"And I need a kind of actor
who will speak to a more urban audience."
See, he was ahead of the curve.
[upbeat song playing]
[Rani Mukerji] Adi and me have had
a great working relationship.
It's so strange.
He had called me for a film,
which, strangely, was called Dulhan,
which means bride.
[laughing]
And that film never got made.
But I landed up
being his bride after many years later.
And he's the person
who actually believed in my talent.
[in Hindi] …so what?
Your name is in my heart.
[Rani in English] I remember Adi
giving me a big lecture.
Uh, somewhere, the films
that I was doing around that time
was not really
giving justice to my talent, so to speak.
Okay, that's it.
[crowd cheering]
[Rani] I had actually taken a sabbatical
and I stopped doing films
for about eight months
because I realized that I wasn't getting
the roles that I wanted to do.
[crowd laughs]
I wanted to be the actor
who talks about the modern Indian woman.
You are sick.
You have no respect for women.
[in Hindi] Such strange notions.
You wanted to know?
[Rani in English]
I think that kind of triggered,
uh, the whole change in my career as well.
The kind of films that I chose after that.
Good evening, again.
-Rani Mukerji.
-For Hum Tum.
[upbeat Bollywood song playing]
[Dev Anand] Saif Ali Khan,
please come here.
[Saif] Oh…
And the award goes to
Kunal Kohli for Hum Tum.
[in Hindi]
Don't get upset, nor do we part ways ♪
Friend, you have slipped and how ♪
[Kunal Kohli in English] Thank you,
everybody, and the film industry
for accepting me, a complete outsider.
Thank you, everybody.
There were three pillars of Hindi films,
like everybody used to say,
that you can't do without,
which is drama, emotion and romance.
I said I'm going to remove
these three pillars and see what happens.
[engine revving]
[thrilling music playing]
[Aditya] Dhoom was this film
which I actually,
simply put, I wanted to make a film
where I wanted to combine
Manmohan Desai and Michael Bay.
I wanted to make a very non-Yash Raj film
because Yash Raj Films
was known for only romance.
Because Yash Raj Films
was Yash Chopra actually, you know.
And I said, you know,
to be a studio, I need to make sure
we're good at doing other stuff as well.
[sighs]
-So I met Adi in 2003.
-[woman] Are we okay for sound?
-[man] Yeah. Silence please!
-[woman] Don't make a noise.
The truth is that, you know,
I was never a big fan of romantic films.
Um…
So when I met Adi,
it was also a process of discovery for me
because I realized that
he had a better sense of the consumer,
of the film market as it was.
[engines revving]
[Vijay Krishna Acharya] So Dhoom started
with the idea of a gang of bank robbers
and their strength is their speed.
And before you can catch them,
they are out.
[thrilling music playing]
And if you look at it,
that's somehow the new India.
That's this post-liberalized thing
because the cops are still in their,
you know, antediluvian jeeps.
They don't know
how to deal with young, cool thieves.
[gas hissing]
[engine revving]
So he said, "If we pull this off, then
we know that there is a new audience."
[police siren blaring]
I… I again had to work on a budget,
so I took three upcoming actors.
I didn't take stars.
-[thrilling music playing]
-[engines revving]
And I spent more money
on the bikes than them.
[in Hindi] Like I said, you're a thief.
You run, I'll get you.
[in English] My name is John Abraham.
How's it looking, guys? Are you happy?
I'm a motorcyclist.
And, uh, I'm an accidental actor.
[in Hindi] You'll never catch me.
-[engine revs]
-[dramatic music playing]
[in English] Dhoom was very special
for me. A sleeper hit.
No one expected anything out of us,
especially anything out of me.
And, uh, my concern
was only riding motorcycles.
[dramatic music continues]
[Vijay] John had had a hit,
but his last hit was quite some time ago.
Uh, Abhishek had had a string
of unsuccessful commercial films.
[Abhishek Bachchan]
He called the three of us, said,
"Look, you're not going to win
any awards for this film."
"So don't try and be some huge actor."
[John] "John, you don't have
any heroine in this film."
"You don't have any of the funny lines."
I said, "Yeah, it's okay."
"John, you don't have any songs."
I said, "Thank God."
[Abhishek] "The screenplay of this film
is very linear and is very simple."
"There's an action sequence
followed by a song
followed by a comedy sequence."
"That's the film. Just stick to it,
listen to what Sanjay says,
and I guarantee you'll have a hit film."
[indistinct chatter]
[all cheer]
[in Hindi] You play like
a seasoned gambler.
[Uday in English]
There was this character Ali
that Adi said, like, he wanted me to do.
And he had this particular way of speaking
which is kind of like…
Like a very street way
of speaking in India.
Like, it's called "tapori."
And I wasn't used to speaking like that.
Naturally, I had to learn.
[in Hindi] Around here,
everyone is a loose cannon.
Hence, speak no evil and hear no evil.
[Uday in English] So I asked him that
can you bring someone over
that I could interview
because I need to do a character study?
So he says, "I know this guy
really into movies and he'd love to talk."
And I started
having a conversation with him,
that's when the idea of what I was
going to do with Ali was really born
because he was, like,
very charming and very, like, childlike.
My car seems to have broken down.
Could you help me out, please?
[Uday] So I realized that
this is actually the hook that I needed.
That in Ali's mind, he's the coolest cat.
[chuckles] You know,
he has no idea that he is loud
and he's like a little bit not good
expressing in English, specifically.
Or that his ideas
about falling in love and all
are a little naive
and there's a childlike innocence to him.
[in Hindi]
Sweetheart, you're mine, I'm yours ♪
[in English] Ali is the only character
that tugs your heart, really, in Dhoom.
And I think Uday played it
really sweetly and really well.
And I think he came out
as the most lovable character.
Ali did all the tricks,
Ali had all the funny lines,
Ali had all the song and dance.
[Vijay] He never played a character
which was on the wrong side
of the tracks, as it were.
And it was a bit of a struggle for him.
Both the language
and the diction and everything.
[in Hindi] Hey, boss,
wrong rhyme. I'm no thief.
[Vijay in English] I thought
Uday was great in the film.
Everybody said,
"Man, I want a friend like Ali."
[in Hindi] She's gone. Now back to work.
[Ali exclaims]
[Dhoom theme song playing]
[Maneesh Sharma in English] I went to see
some other film. Don't remember which one.
We saw the trailer of Dhoom.
And the moment it said,
"Yash Chopra Presents,"
and somewhere,
"Produced by Aditya Chopra,"
we're like, "Wow!"
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[Maneesh in English]
Dhoom happening around that time
was also a sign that they are looking to
get into different genres.
You can see
the confluence of energy was changing.
[Abhishek] I'll never forget
the expression
on Yash Uncle and Dad's face
when the trailer of Dhoom first came.
It was a three-minute trailer,
and they came out
after almost half an hour, 45 minutes.
And we got to know that they'd
seen it on repeat some ten, 12 times.
I'll never forget that.
And they've come out,
and I remember Yash Uncle said,
[in Hindi] "The kids
have made a great picture."
[in English] I mean,
to get the great Yash Chopra to say,
"You guys have made a good film,"
that's the ultimate pat on your back.
[engine roaring]
It was the day of the release,
27th August, 2004.
I remember Adi called me on my mobile.
He was at the Vikas Park office.
He said, "Sit down."
I said, "Why, what happened?"
He said, "Congratulations,
you just gave your first hit."
["Dhoom Again" playing]
[Abhishek] And I just
remember going crazy.
I was crying, I was jumping up and down.
I have a little garden and he ran out
and he started, like, just jumping.
Because Abhishek
had not given a hit for many movies.
And then we went
to do some promotional work
and we were talking to people
who had just seen the movie,
and they were
just going crazy about the movie.
"This is what the youth wants.
You've given it to us."
Dhoom again and run away with me ♪
On a rollercoaster ride ♪
[Lilly Singh] I remember being
blown away by it.
Because I think it's the first
action movie I saw that was Bollywood.
Prior to that, most Bollywood films were
solely romantic, solely a love triangle.
Solely about parents' acceptance.
And Dhoom was like…
"God, this is our Mission: Impossible!"
There's action and there's stunts.
[John] We were
looked down upon as motorcyclists.
And I remember Adi telling me this.
"After this film, if motorcyclists
go out and rev their motorcycles,
we've got a hit film."
[engines revving]
[reporter] The biking craze
has caught on with movies like Dhoom.
Dealers say that there has been
a consistent rise from year to year
when it comes to the sale of sports bikes.
[John] Dhoom was a statement of rebellion
for all the youth in the country
that could not find an identity.
I wouldn't say it was all positive.
I wanted to rob a bank after that.
-[laughs]
-That was so smooth.
Let nothing get you down ♪
Go out and paint the town ♪
Let's shout, break out ♪
You know, I'm not gonna lie.
It did, in some twisted way,
gave me the confidence
to be like, "I could do a heist."
"I could. Me and my friends,
me and my cousins,
we could do a heist." [laughs]
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[in English] Day or two after that,
he was on the phone again saying,
"Okay, we got to do the next one.
It has to be bigger, better."
Party all the time ♪
Dhoom again, we got to steal the show ♪
[Hrithik] The impact that it made
at that point of time was incredible.
Dhoom is one of the largest
franchises in the country.
Nothing of the kind
had been attempted, executed,
or perfected,
which I think happened, uh…
Uh, you know, with each series of Dhoom,
it just went up a notch.
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[Vijay in English] The production value,
I think, went way beyond Dhoom:1.
Way, way beyond.
Even the stars,
you know, Hrithik, Aishwarya,
the whole thing got upscaled.
[Lilly] It's fun, and it's beautiful.
Aesthetically pleasing.
And every time I watch a Western film
that's supposed to be
so aesthetically pleasing,
I'm not gonna lie,
I've a bit of a chip on my shoulder
'cause I'm like,
"Um, have you seen Dhoom?"
Let me introduce you to Dhoom.
So we had three big hits in one year
of completely varied genres.
I kind of got confidence that, you know,
I could…
I could handle this multiple filmmaking.
I… I could do this.
[Amitabh in Hindi] This is India.
Glistening, glittering, whispering…
[Aditya in English] I remember
distinctively, it was around 2005,
I think the country came together.
Uh, it was doing well.
[melodious song playing]
[in Hindi] Small town cocoons
These dull afternoons ♪
[Aditya in English]
The need to go abroad to succeed
went away because
so much corporatization happened.
So many multinationals came in
that we could do
pretty well where we are, you know.
This phase of this NRI fascination
started going down automatically
because the whole new generation
was finding success in India
by being Indian.
So when I started,
uh, writing Bunty Aur Babli,
the whole thing was,
"This desi stuff is really cool."
[song continues]
And there was a sense of,
"Hey, we're comfortable with who we are."
You know, "We don't
need to look westward to be cool."
"We're good."
[in Hindi] Dhadak dhadak, dhadak dhadak
Watch the smoke billow ♪
Dhadak dhadak, dhadak dhadak
Hear the whistle blow ♪
[Abhishek in English] Bunty Aur Babli
is one of the first films
that I can remember, during that era,
that made small-town India cool.
Where suddenly it went "desi,"
and said that,
"No, desi is also very cool."
[Jaideep] The same producer
and director, Adi,
he had literally invented
this whole NRI thing.
[chuckling] And he just spun around
on his axis overnight.
And it all just changed.
[Tanul] The popularity of Bunty Aur Babli
is the story of an alternate India.
I think it is the story
that the country was dying to hear.
[vocalizing]
[Namrata Rao] And the, sort of,
return to the heartland still continues.
[in Hindi] Call me, oh, watch me go ♪
[solemn music playing]
[Jaideep in English]
I saw a newspaper article
where the Indian women's hockey team, uh,
had won a big tournament.
And the way the, uh, journalist
had reported it made you so proud.
And the size of the column was this much.
And it just occurred to me that, like,
I didn't even know
we had a women's hockey team.
I wanted to do a documentary on them.
And when I spent time with them I realized
they just didn't have money
for even the most basic things.
When you're researching, you're not
supposed to get involved, but I did.
And then I went to everyone I knew
in advertising and marketing for sponsors.
Sports brands to health food brands
and ultimately came down to makeup brands.
But nobody gave any money,
and I remember I came down… [sniffles]
…to the National Stadium to meet the team
because I had made big promises.
And they couldn't change in the washrooms
because the bulbs
had been stolen long time back.
And it wasn't safe.
And, like, two girls would,
who were holding a jersey,
and the third one
would be changing behind the jersey.
They were using a jersey like a curtain,
and they said,
[in Hindi] "Brother,
did you have any luck?"
[in English] And I started crying.
I didn't know what to do.
I was feeling… I've never felt so, uh…
dejected and humiliated.
[imperceptible]
[Jaideep] We finished, uh,
the readings for Bunty Aur Babli,
and Adi said,
"What do you want to do next?"
And, uh, I said, "I have something,
a story which I really want to tell."
"And if I can't tell it,
then I'll just go back to Delhi."
"I don't want to tell any stories,
I don't like this stuff."
I told him about all the athletes I met,
all the girls and all the coaches,
and what they face
and, like, how they need to be famous.
And it all just came out
and he said, "Let's do it."
That's it. [chuckles]
-[whistle blows]
-[grunts]
-[crowd roaring]
-[yells]
[Namrata] The background
of this character, Kabir Khan,
is that he was
an exceptional hockey player for India.
[in Hindi] Do you think we lost
because someone sold out?
What did you say?
-[reporter] Kabir Khan.
-What did you say?
[reporter] Kabir Khan.
[Namrata in English]
And then he's accused of cheating
and supporting Pakistan
in an Indo-Pak match.
[woman sobbing]
TRAITOR
[somber music playing]
[in Hindi] Do not look there, son.
[Namrata in English]
And then many years later,
there's this Indian women's hockey team
which is being set up.
[in Hindi] You know
in a country like ours,
a women's team exists just as formality.
Not reality.
[Namrata in English]
And he initiates to coach them.
[Shah Rukh in Hindi] I am told that from
the 250 million girls in this country,
you are the 16 best hockey players.
[Tanul in English]
You don't see him play a character,
at least not with as much commitment
as he did in Chak De! India.
He is not a star at all.
In fact he's… After a point, he's somebody
who is not even driving the story.
It… it really becomes
a story of these, uh, 11 players.
It becomes a story of a team.
[whistles] Hey, baby, hey, hey.
[Maneesh] Chak De! is a phenomena.
[man groans]
[in Punjabi] Harassing girls,
are you? Try it!
[man exclaims]
[Maneesh] I'm talking about a collective
energy of going
for a Yash Raj-Shah Rukh Khan film
called Chak De! India,
sitting in the theater,
and seeing what we saw.
I've seen it at least 20 times.
[girls exclaiming]
[Namrata] It was
such a community experience.
Like, I watched Chak De!
here in a ladies' screening.
Everybody just screamed and whistled.
[in Hindi] How dare you tease a girl!
Acting too smart! Take this!
[Tanul in English] It's a film
that takes a close look at
what really comprises India.
You had these 11 players
from different parts of the country
with different linguistic,
regional and cultural differences,
that really set them apart.
Not a lot of Hindi films do that.
This concept of what constitutes India,
this concept of nationhood,
is mostly… the concept of North India.
Chak De! really broke that.
[in Hindi] Do something, do something
My veins are bursting ♪
[Tanul in English] Yash Raj Films,
even when it's talking about
the concepts of nationhood
and things like that,
it's never exclusionary.
I mean, even a film like Chak De! India,
at the most, it's a patriotic film.
[song continues]
[Namrata] India won the T20 World Cup
and this became the anthem for that.
In fact, the night
India won that World Cup,
everybody was out on the streets.
It was amazing… and singing this song.
[in Hindi]
Be stubborn if that is what it takes ♪
Do or die, all is at stake ♪
Be stubborn if that is what it takes
Do or die, all is at stake ♪
[Maneesh in English] It's a breakthrough
in Bollywood, hands down.
[in Hindi] Go, India! ♪
[Maneesh in English]
In terms of the gender discrimination,
or the women empowerment,
things or cinema like Chak De!
are the, uh,
torch-bearers for such changes.
[in Hindi] Go, India! ♪
[percussive music playing]
[Aditya in English] From 2005 onwards,
began that whole journey of
literally every director was homegrown
and we launched new directors.
And then we took this whole
nurturing of talent to the next step,
where we started to groom,
launch new actors.
Look into the camera.
Hi, what's your name?
Hi, my name is Neha Anand.
-[man] Uh, Neha, how old are you?
-Twenty-eight.
[Aditya] It began with, actually,
my own instinct as an audience,
that I felt
there was a certain fatigue coming.
I'm watching the same faces.
I think we need more people.
[man in Hindi]
Is this a joke? Is this a charade?
Not even ashamed of yourself.
For 20 years, I alone…
[Shanoo Sharma in English]
The thing is, I used to be a party animal.
What are we talking about?
Luckily, all the people I partied with,
today, are big directors and producers.
[laughs]
They'd be like,
"What do you think of the actor?"
And I'd be like, "I think that
they could be a bit of trouble later."
"I don't think it's a strong performance."
Blah, blah, blah.
So he would, like… All these people
would say, "You should cast."
I'd be like,
"I don't know what casting is."
-And then YRF came into the picture.
-Ready?
Camera rolling and action.
[interviewer] Where's some of the most
unusual places that you've found talent?
On the street, coffee shops, parks…
Like, if I walk into the jewelry store,
I could… I could find a girl there.
It could be anywhere.
[interviewer] What was
the first role that you cast
that was, like, your brilliant idea?
Ooh. [clicks tongue]
-Of course, Ranveer Singh. Yeah.
-[humming] All right.
Ma'am, you must ask me
about how I landed my first part.
[interviewer] So we have
another 30 minutes?
Yeah, let's roll it.
Roll the shit out of it.
[Band Baaja Baaraat theme playing]
[in Hindi] Bands, horns and revelry ♪
[Ranveer Singh in English]
I was okay at academics and sports.
I wasn't the best athlete
or the best student,
but I knew what my natural abilities are.
The teachers used to point it out as well.
They were like, "You really do have
that bone in you, you know,
to be an entertainer."
It wasn't so simple though,
because the Hindi film industry,
for the longest number of years,
was, uh, very closed.
I'm talking around
the turn of the century, you know,
2000, when you'd look around
and you'd see that everybody's
the son of somebody, you know.
And I thought to myself, "My chances
are really slim. Like, a million to one."
[in Hindi]
There are loads and loads of dreams ♪
[Ranveer in English] So I met this
very, very interesting person,
Shanoo Sharma, at a party.
I had given up on wanting to be an actor.
She hadn't decided on her career path.
But we became friends.
And I went to university
and got my degree, I came back,
and she actually
got me my first few auditions.
[Aditya] So we were making this film,
and she already had this guy
and, uh, she was very gung-ho about him.
And she showed me
some pictures and a video.
[interviewer] Is that Ranveer Singh
Bhavnani or Ranveer Singh?
-Ranveer Singh.
-[interviewer] Ranveer Singh.
And here she was showing me
this scruffy-looking guy
and he is very loud, and…
…really fun experience.
I've met some really cool people.
I mean, in the photos,
he really looked not good.
I fired her actually.
I said, "What's wrong with you?"
"No, I don't think so."
And I was like,
"No, just send him in for a test."
So I tried to get in touch with Ranveer
and, as usual, he was really busy
on a date
or something like that. And I just…
Finally, I stopped calling
and I just wrote "Adi Chopra." [chuckles]
I was like… [exclaiming]
She then auditioned him for the part.
Slate introduction, "My name is Ranveer."
"I haven't done anything
other than theater before."
"These are my profiles…"
And this assistant…
[laughs]
…was a warm, young lady,
whose name was Bhumi Pednekar.
[laughs]
[imperceptible]
And Bhumi was very,
like, very professional.
You know, she was really…
Her manner of going about it
was really putting me at ease.
The only reason
I was able to give a good audition
was because she
was performing the scene with me.
[in Hindi] You left for office?
You're back home.
Reached office? Back home.
[Aditya in English] And I just
couldn't take my eyes off him.
He was just riveting.
He was charismatic,
he was attractive while he was acting.
I was like exulting,
literally with my hands in the air.
"Yes, yes!" I couldn't believe
I got a callback the same evening.
They had never launched, uh, a new face,
um, a new male face, up until this point.
So, this was unprecedented.
I went back to the same office.
Can they park the car?
[in Hindi] Counting on these scoundrels?
They're not worthy.
[in English] Uh,
and I start reading with Anushka,
with Habib sitting there,
Maneesh sitting there and it's a disaster.
[somber music playing]
I couldn't get past that audition.
They said, "Let's try him again,"
they called me back the next day.
Performed a scene on camera with Anushka.
Absolutely disastrous.
[woman in Hindi] Excuse me, who are you?
[Ranveer in English] And the door opens
few minutes later, boom, walks in who,
I've never seen this individual,
but I know that this is Aditya Chopra.
He was like, yeah… He finishes, he's like…
"So, why are you screwing it up?"
He was like, "Look, kid,
you were great in your first few auditions
and you've been terrible after that."
[chuckles]
He said a bunch of other things.
Um…
He said, "When I saw you audition,
I saw…
a 25-year career in front of me."
He's like,
"I've not seen an audition like that."
"I saw it then and there, in that moment."
And he was like,
"So we've decided to go with you."
And I slumped down to my knees
and I started crying. [voice breaks]
[chuckles]
That was it.
[chuckles]
[dance music playing]
[in Hindi] Love is splendid ♪
[Ranveer in English] You know,
now when you ask him,
he said,
"I decided after your first audition
that I was going to launch you."
I said, "How?"
Because nobody else saw it.
Not the writer, not the director, not the…
not the co-actor. Nobody… nobody saw it.
Only he saw it.
[in Hindi] It's a euphoria ♪
It's riveting ♪
It's a euphoria ♪
[in English] It released on Friday
and on Monday I was famous.
You know, it was almost…
Almost literally overnight.
[in Hindi] It's a euphoria ♪
[Aditya in English] It's always risky
to launch, uh, newcomers.
So Ranveer was a risk,
but I had gained enough experience
to understand that,
you know, audiences don't really
care about where you come from.
They care about what they see on screen.
And I kind of saw that
two years before Ranveer, in Anushka,
when I launched her.
It just seemed like
a very far-fetched sort of idea
'cause I come from
an absolutely non-film background.
I didn't know anybody
who worked in movies. Not a single person.
[Aditya] At YRF,
I have a very, very simple belief.
I want the best talent. It doesn't matter
to me where they come from.
[Anushka Sharma] After a while,
Adi called me.
He said, "Look, I am definitely
going to launch you."
It was huge for somebody like me
who came from Bangalore,
who did not grow up in this world.
[Ayushmann Khurrana]
Of course, in early 2000s,
if I was, like, an aspiring actor,
this wouldn't have been possible.
It's just that the casting system
in our country has changed so much.
Currently, if you are talented,
you just go to a casting director.
You'll get the opportunity
if you're good. It's that simple.
That was not the case 20 years back.
[Aditya] There are more people
who are successful in the industry
who have not been part of any lineage
than ever before.
[interviewer] Do you
come from a film family?
Not at all.
And I come from
a very, very middle-class background.
I've worked my way up.
We're like a very filmy family.
We don't belong to, uh, the film industry,
but we love Hindi cinema.
My… my family's very creative, but I
don't come from an actor-film family.
[singer vocalizing]
[Aditya] I think
what has happened over the years
is the industry has grown,
and with that growth,
the need
for a lot more diversity has happened.
And because of that, I think,
as filmmakers,
you're constantly looking for
different talent, different voices.
[crowd cheering]
[Aditya] Yes,
if you are born into a film family,
or you are friendly with film people,
there's no doubt
that there could be an easier in
to getting a meeting, getting an audition,
even probably getting a break.
But it just stops there.
[imperceptible]
[solemn music playing]
[Uday] When Dhoom happened,
I was always trying
to make it in as a mainstream actor,
still that "hero" tag,
trying to be like, you know,
the star that sells the movies.
I'm trying to still head
towards that direction, right?
And if I think about it,
I should've taken Ali as an example
and done more roles like that.
Again, a lot of offers came after Dhoom,
[chuckles] which I didn't take,
uh, because I was
trying to get into a space
which probably wasn't meant for me.
[Aditya] Uday is a very talented actor.
He's very hard-working.
But for whatever reason,
an audience did not want to see him
the way he wanted to see himself.
They loved him in comedy,
he didn't want to do comedy.
When I started acting, I was very naive.
I… I went in with the idea
that everyone will love me. [chuckles]
You know, I… I didn't imagine
that people might not like me.
Okay? I am going out
with Tanya, okay? She'll leave.
-[Jugal] Your body has to…
-And what, look at her when I get up?
No, you look at the phone.
[Uday] The conversations that were
happening about me weren't really great.
People kept saying that I'm…
You know, I'm not successful,
I'm not a good actor,
and even though, like,
I've had successful movies,
it doesn't matter
because the perception
has started going down the path
that he's just,
you know, the child of nepotism,
as people say in Bollywood today.
And, uh, it did affect me a lot.
[Aditya] Then at one point,
I think he kind of
decided on his own, that, you know,
"Probably this is not for me,
'cause I'm not going to…
I'm not going to be able
to find the kind of success I want to."
"So let me start to step away from this
and let me start to do something else."
[interviewer] Do you think
you'll ever act again?
Maybe. I don't know.
I mean,
I think if I do get back to acting,
it would be more as a hobby. [chuckles]
So today, I'm not bound by this idea
that I have to make this my career
and, you know, reach that pinnacle.
Today, it could just be like,
"Oh, this is an interesting character."
"I want you to be
Master Jedi, Kai Chang-ii." [laughs]
I'll go play that for sure.
If JJ comes to me,
I would be like, "Yeah." [laughs]
[pensive music playing]
[Pamela Chopra] A father is always happy
to see his son go ahead than him.
You see, this is one relationship
which doesn't allow any
jealousy or envy, or anything.
Yash made up his mind that,
"I'm not going to compete anymore
with the younger directors."
"Let them have a field day."
"I had a field day when I was younger
and let those boys
also have their chance."
But I know one thing,
that he was very happy
that Adi was slowly taking over.
In fact, I heard him say one night,
"Adi is handling the office so well,
I think I can now die with grace."
I said, "Don't say that, please."
[closing theme music playing]
with films being made around me.
And, uh, my father was a producer.
And my uncle,
Mr. Nasir Hussain, was a producer,
leading director and producer of his time.
I belong to a film family.
[mellow music playing]
We're in the fourth generation of actors.
I have flirted around
the film set, you know, while growing up.
Just spending time with my father.
My grandfather, my father, my uncles.
Maternal and paternal.
My mother, my grandmother, my aunt…
My sister-in-law, my wife,
my nieces, my son, we are all actors.
My mother was in movies
in the, uh, '60s and '70s.
I grew up on film sets.
Both my parents are actors.
[Hrithik Roshan] I was a filmmaker's son
and I thought, "That's what I have to do.
I've to grow up and be in the films."
I think I was born into the lineage,
I was born into a family of dance.
My dad and Yash Uncle
were colleagues in their time.
Yashji and my father
had worked a lot together.
-[chuckles]
-My father was a filmmaker also.
So basically, our association
with Yash Raj has been
from way back before we were even born.
I never told anyone
that my father made Hindi films.
I told them he was a businessman.
I was almost apologetic about it.
I am doing a show for Netflix, which is…
And both my son and daughter are in there.
And I feel really proud to say,
"Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire?"
They're like, "Yeah!"
I'm like, "I'm that guy's nephew."
Now we're all very comfortable
working with each other. It's great fun.
Nepotism.
Uh…
So, yeah, this nepotism debate,
which, which, uh… which is,
uh, which has really flared up
in the past year or so is, uh…
uh, is unfortunate.
[solemn music playing]
I think about 20, 25, 30 years back,
the industry was definitely smaller.
And because of that,
it was just very natural
for a child to aspire
to do the same business
as the, you know, the parent.
Which, actually, was true
in most Indian businesses
or most Indian families or whatever.
I think one of the things
that people tend to ignore
is, like, every person who comes
from a certain privileged background,
uh, be it a family lineage,
or be it friends,
or be it what they sort of call
the "insiders" of the film industry,
everyone is not successful.
I can articulate it
without mentioning other people.
I can just articulate it
mentioning my own family.
My brother is an actor,
and he's not a very successful actor.
Now, here is the son
of one of the biggest filmmakers,
he's a brother of a very big filmmaker.
Imagine a company like YRF,
that has probably launched
the most newcomers,
and we could not make him a star.
Why could we not do it for our own?
Because the bottom line is
only an audience will decide,
"I like this person,
I want to see this person."
No one else can decide that.
[opening theme music playing]
[slow percussive music playing]
[interviewer] We're gonna talk about Uday.
You friends with him?
I love him the most
[chuckling] in the whole family, I think.
All right, make me look good, okay?
Uday is the finest soul.
[Hrithik] I think, uh,
Uday has a personality that is…
I think the most successful
personality of all of us.
[chuckling] This is… this is good,
I… I could live with this.
Uday was and is still,
if I may say so, my teddy bear.
A lot of my childhood happy memories
are all associated with him.
I was like a, they call "bhola."
Like, very, like, innocent.
I was very chilled out, actually.
I was always, like, a chubby kid,
and my brother
was like the skinny, athletic one.
And he would love bugging me.
I was more into my own world, in my own…
In fact,
I created my own country in my head.
It's called "Ankert."
And I had a whole history
of how it came about.
You know, this immigrant from Greece,
and then there's this dictator.
It was like a democratic monarchy.
For some reason,
I don't know, it just stuck.
[Aditya Chopra] For a long time, everybody
knew what I was going to do in life.
For a long time,
we didn't know what Uday was going to do.
And Uday was exploring.
He had gone to UCLA.
He had gone… He was exploring, you know?
[muffled shouting]
[Uday Chopra] Adi was very clear
that he wanted to be a filmmaker.
I was very interested in acting,
and I was always performing in school.
So in my mind,
I knew that's what I wanted to do.
But I was a little embarrassed
about actually
admitting to people that I wanted to act.
I knew that you had to look a certain way,
you had a certain, you know, height,
and a certain hair,
and a certain kind of a…
I don't know, you know, persona.
I knew I didn't have that.
In my heart I was like,
"Oh, my God, how am I going to tell people
this is what I want to do?"
For me, it was a complete surprise
that Uday was thinking of being an actor,
and I think, for some reason,
he just kept it like a big secret.
When we came to know
that he actually wants to act
uh, it was a surprise to me. I would've
never seen him, uh, as an actor.
And that's the time
I was writing Mohabbatein,
and obviously,
this was my next film after Dilwale,
so it was a big thing.
Ready, camera!
-[man 1] 24 by eight, plus ten.
-[woman] Take four.
-[man 2] Take one.
-[man 3] Action!
[Mohabbatein theme playing]
[Uday] The cool thing about my family
was that even though I said,
"This is what I want to do,"
it wasn't like,
"Oh, you're gonna get a movie."
Like, my brother was like,
"Okay, fine, but you got to test."
"I wanna see if you're
really good in front of the camera."
"Because if you're not,
then there's no point."
[upbeat music playing]
Hi, I'm Uday Chopra.
I play Vicky in Mohabbatein.
Vicky is basically
a very happy-go-lucky kind of guy.
He's… You know, he's, uh…
He sees the world
through rosy-colored filter, you know.
[wind whistling]
[anklet jingling]
[Jaideep Sahni] Mohabbatein was
also very significant
because there were six newcomers
being launched in the film.
[upbeat music playing]
[Uday] What my brother insisted on,
and he prepared us really a lot
before we went on set.
He actually put us through
his own acting school.
I'm Anand Yadav, from UP.
[all swishing]
[Uday] And my brother had this idea
that if you can't act in a song
and be really, like, charming and good,
you're not gonna make it in Hindi movies.
Because songs were such a huge part.
He would say, like, every week,
to do one song on camera.
-[upbeat music continues]
-[dance instructor shouting indistinctly]
[Uday] And we would do this
week after week after week.
Song after song after song.
Normal people go like two, three days,
and they pick up a few steps.
We were practicing
for over a month. On each song.
So the first day when I went on set,
I was, like,
really comfortable in my skin.
I… I thought,
"I've been doing this all my life."
Like, it was so easy for me.
It's, I think, my second or third day
when I had to face Mr. Bachchan.
And there's a shot in Mohabbatein
where I'm coming late and he catches me.
And that was
the first time I'm facing him.
[thunder crashes]
And I didn't sleep that night.
I was, like, so nervous.
He gives it all. Like, he's there.
He's present. He's looking into your eyes.
[Narayan Shankar chanting in Sanskrit]
Salutation to the Lord.
[captivating music playing]
Salutation to the Lord.
Salutation to the Lord.
[Tanul Thakur in English]
Amitabh Bachchan, he reunites
with Yash Raj Films
after a gap of 19 years.
And he was paired opposite Shah Rukh Khan,
which was a kind of coming together
that had not happened before.
Shah Rukh Khan, by then,
was a big, big deal.
And scenes between the two in the movie
make for some electrifying chemistry.
[in Hindi] I request you
to please take over
the responsibility of Gurukul.
[Amitabh in English]
My reaction when I first heard the script
was absolutely spellbinding.
[Mohabbatein theme playing]
I have virtually seen
Adi Chopra born in front of me.
He was a little baby in arms
when I was working in the film Deewaar.
And to then be sitting in front of him
and listening to a narration
to absolute perfection,
was an experience
that I have not felt in my entire career.
[in Hindi] It was not Priya, Papa.
[Yash Chopra in English]
Mohabbatein is dearest to me.
[in Hindi] Who was that?
[Yash in English] It is
the second film of Aditya.
A confirmation
of him as a brilliant director.
It was the first film of Uday.
His first stepping-stone
towards his career.
-[grunts]
-[captivating music playing]
[Uday] That was really validation.
Like, "You know what, I could do this."
You know, maybe
I have a career here or something.
I could pursue a dream
that not many people get,
you know, the chance to do so.
That validation made me feel really good
and gave me a lot of confidence.
[serene music playing]
[Aditya] I was privileged
that I was already given
a huge start by my father.
My father was so successful,
he literally gave me
everything on a platter.
I was just lucky, you know.
Now, if I do not take this head start
and make something out of it,
I would actually not be doing justice
to, uh, the opportunity.
So I think that was my drive.
How do I put Yash Raj Films
on the map of the world?
[mellow music playing]
So Yash Raj Films predominantly
was, uh, the topmost production house
and we used to do one film in two years.
And then I started involving myself
a little bit more in the business.
Honestly, I didn't have any, uh, learning.
It was just instinct.
So my logic was simple
that if we're a production house
and we now know how
to produce films, let's do more of that.
And let's see
where it takes me as a producer.
[Madhuri Dixit] Since very young,
when we started working together,
that's when, uh…
He's a very thinking kind of a person.
And, um…
also not just very creative,
but also understands
the business of making films.
And I remember Mujhse Dosti Karoge!
was a very important film.
I… I… I believe that film is
very important in my career as a producer.
Because that's the film
I didn't want to make.
[in Hindi] I can't do all this rubbish.
Tina, I've done a lot
for you since childhood.
Just leave it to Tina.
Okay, now you tell me, how does Raj look?
[Aditya in English] It was the first film
that we were trying to produce
which was coming out
of this multiple-film studio
that we wanted to become.
The idea was to launch
new directors with new voices.
Mujhse Dosti Karoge! began with this
desire in me to make a Hindi film.
And a good friend of mine,
Karan Johar, had an idea of a film.
And I started writing.
-[melodious music playing]
-[vocalizing]
[Aditya] The story is a simple story
about a guy
falling in love with the soul of a girl,
but mistaking that soul for somebody else.
[in Hindi] You never wrote letters to me?
If I did, would you have replied to me
the same way you did to Tina's letters?
Now what's this?
[Aditya in English] And then finally,
when he realizes who it is,
he has to choose,
okay, now what does he do?
Does he stick to the girl
that he kind of professed his love for,
but actually, those were not her thoughts
or her emotions that he fell in love with…
[in Hindi] Tina is not different
from her letters.
[Aditya in English]
…or does he, you know, go with the girl
who he believes he really loves?
[in Hindi] Tina is different
from the letters that you wrote for her.
[in English] So ultimately, what it means
is that this is a film
where the end is about
"Who will get the guy?"
[in Hindi] If you were with us…
[in English] I always react to any story
or any material as an audience first.
And as an audience, I felt
I'm not sure I'm going to like this.
[in Hindi] One is my love
and the other is my friend.
[Aditya in English] This is not going
to work because I think audiences
have moved away
from these triangles where…
"Which girl will the guy go to?"
[in Hindi] You are Tina, right?
[in English] We did it in 1997 last
in Dil To Pagal Hai.
I think that was pretty much the peak.
Karan did it in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,
I said, "Where are we gonna take this?"
Action!
[Aditya] Now, what happened was that, uh,
my father loved the script,
my mother loved the script.
Like, Hrithik Roshan was the top star
at that time, he said yes.
So I said, "My God, I really,
I'm not seeing what they're seeing,
so probably my thinking is not correct."
[in Hindi] Nowadays everybody
Is discussing our love ♪
Really? ♪
Everybody knows… ♪
[Aditya in English] Then, of course,
we got two really good girls on board.
The film was a really big film.
And the film didn't do well.
[somber music playing]
It was the best thing
that could've happened to me.
Because that film didn't do well,
I was clear that the next slate,
I want to do pretty much
the way I see films.
And I'm… It's okay if I'll fail.
But let me try and do the next slate
a little more hands-on.
[Uday] Once Adi kind of proved
that he is a talent,
and his ideas are,
I think, relevant today,
my father
started taking him a lot more seriously.
You know, before then, he was like,
"He's my son, I've to train him."
But with DDLJ, he broke the mold.
Because a lot of the things
my father wanted, Adi didn't do.
And he proved that that was working.
So he felt that now
he needs my brother's point of view
because he knows,
you know, what the youth want.
[Aditya] And my dad was letting me,
now, kind of take the decisions.
My first slate of films
which carried my name as a producer
was in the year 2004,
and it was Hum Tum, Dhoom and Veer-Zaara.
[in Hindi] Karan, I thought
we're taking this tour together?
[in English] So?
[in Hindi] Why do guys
always walk ahead of girls?
Or why are girls always a step behind?
[Aditya in English] Hum Tum was a script…
When we had signed Hrithik Roshan
for Mujhse Dosti Karoge!,
we had to wait one year for his dates.
So Kunal started writing
this Hum Tum script at that time,
and he gave me
a few pages and I said, "Oh, God…"
I was so excited.
[in Hindi] Marriage is
the end of love and romance.
Does he know what love and romance is?
He's talking of marriage!
[Aditya in English]
My father didn't get the script.
So I told him, I said,
"Dad, please allow me to make this."
"You give me a budget,
I'll make it on that."
So he said,
"Okay, make it in eight crores."
[upbeat song playing]
[Tanul] Hum Tum is a much younger film.
It's a film released in 2004.
DDLJ was a 1995 film.
So you can see
that a lot of these urban realities
around modern relationships have changed.
The sense of sexual chemistry
comes really naturally to the leads.
Saif Ali Khan is
very evidently metrosexual,
a word that was, uh, everywhere that year.
[in Hindi] I'll never figure why
She isn't like a guy ♪
I'll never figure why
She isn't like a guy ♪
[Aditya in English] And I found it fresh,
I found it, uh, funny,
and I found it
very relevant for contemporary India.
You know? And it kind of,
uh, put Saif Ali Khan
on the map as a leading man.
[Saif Ali Khan] He called me
to his office and he said,
"Listen, Shah Rukh Khan
is doing these large movies for me."
Um, and he's a certain kind
of movie star, you know.
He's saying, "After him,
I don't see anybody else
doing this kind of young love story."
[in Hindi] Look, when love is requited
there's no story to be told.
[Saif in English]
"You know, and you're a kid,
and you should
focus on this kind of thing,
and there's this new chain of theaters
that are coming up, called the multiplex."
"And I need a kind of actor
who will speak to a more urban audience."
See, he was ahead of the curve.
[upbeat song playing]
[Rani Mukerji] Adi and me have had
a great working relationship.
It's so strange.
He had called me for a film,
which, strangely, was called Dulhan,
which means bride.
[laughing]
And that film never got made.
But I landed up
being his bride after many years later.
And he's the person
who actually believed in my talent.
[in Hindi] …so what?
Your name is in my heart.
[Rani in English] I remember Adi
giving me a big lecture.
Uh, somewhere, the films
that I was doing around that time
was not really
giving justice to my talent, so to speak.
Okay, that's it.
[crowd cheering]
[Rani] I had actually taken a sabbatical
and I stopped doing films
for about eight months
because I realized that I wasn't getting
the roles that I wanted to do.
[crowd laughs]
I wanted to be the actor
who talks about the modern Indian woman.
You are sick.
You have no respect for women.
[in Hindi] Such strange notions.
You wanted to know?
[Rani in English]
I think that kind of triggered,
uh, the whole change in my career as well.
The kind of films that I chose after that.
Good evening, again.
-Rani Mukerji.
-For Hum Tum.
[upbeat Bollywood song playing]
[Dev Anand] Saif Ali Khan,
please come here.
[Saif] Oh…
And the award goes to
Kunal Kohli for Hum Tum.
[in Hindi]
Don't get upset, nor do we part ways ♪
Friend, you have slipped and how ♪
[Kunal Kohli in English] Thank you,
everybody, and the film industry
for accepting me, a complete outsider.
Thank you, everybody.
There were three pillars of Hindi films,
like everybody used to say,
that you can't do without,
which is drama, emotion and romance.
I said I'm going to remove
these three pillars and see what happens.
[engine revving]
[thrilling music playing]
[Aditya] Dhoom was this film
which I actually,
simply put, I wanted to make a film
where I wanted to combine
Manmohan Desai and Michael Bay.
I wanted to make a very non-Yash Raj film
because Yash Raj Films
was known for only romance.
Because Yash Raj Films
was Yash Chopra actually, you know.
And I said, you know,
to be a studio, I need to make sure
we're good at doing other stuff as well.
[sighs]
-So I met Adi in 2003.
-[woman] Are we okay for sound?
-[man] Yeah. Silence please!
-[woman] Don't make a noise.
The truth is that, you know,
I was never a big fan of romantic films.
Um…
So when I met Adi,
it was also a process of discovery for me
because I realized that
he had a better sense of the consumer,
of the film market as it was.
[engines revving]
[Vijay Krishna Acharya] So Dhoom started
with the idea of a gang of bank robbers
and their strength is their speed.
And before you can catch them,
they are out.
[thrilling music playing]
And if you look at it,
that's somehow the new India.
That's this post-liberalized thing
because the cops are still in their,
you know, antediluvian jeeps.
They don't know
how to deal with young, cool thieves.
[gas hissing]
[engine revving]
So he said, "If we pull this off, then
we know that there is a new audience."
[police siren blaring]
I… I again had to work on a budget,
so I took three upcoming actors.
I didn't take stars.
-[thrilling music playing]
-[engines revving]
And I spent more money
on the bikes than them.
[in Hindi] Like I said, you're a thief.
You run, I'll get you.
[in English] My name is John Abraham.
How's it looking, guys? Are you happy?
I'm a motorcyclist.
And, uh, I'm an accidental actor.
[in Hindi] You'll never catch me.
-[engine revs]
-[dramatic music playing]
[in English] Dhoom was very special
for me. A sleeper hit.
No one expected anything out of us,
especially anything out of me.
And, uh, my concern
was only riding motorcycles.
[dramatic music continues]
[Vijay] John had had a hit,
but his last hit was quite some time ago.
Uh, Abhishek had had a string
of unsuccessful commercial films.
[Abhishek Bachchan]
He called the three of us, said,
"Look, you're not going to win
any awards for this film."
"So don't try and be some huge actor."
[John] "John, you don't have
any heroine in this film."
"You don't have any of the funny lines."
I said, "Yeah, it's okay."
"John, you don't have any songs."
I said, "Thank God."
[Abhishek] "The screenplay of this film
is very linear and is very simple."
"There's an action sequence
followed by a song
followed by a comedy sequence."
"That's the film. Just stick to it,
listen to what Sanjay says,
and I guarantee you'll have a hit film."
[indistinct chatter]
[all cheer]
[in Hindi] You play like
a seasoned gambler.
[Uday in English]
There was this character Ali
that Adi said, like, he wanted me to do.
And he had this particular way of speaking
which is kind of like…
Like a very street way
of speaking in India.
Like, it's called "tapori."
And I wasn't used to speaking like that.
Naturally, I had to learn.
[in Hindi] Around here,
everyone is a loose cannon.
Hence, speak no evil and hear no evil.
[Uday in English] So I asked him that
can you bring someone over
that I could interview
because I need to do a character study?
So he says, "I know this guy
really into movies and he'd love to talk."
And I started
having a conversation with him,
that's when the idea of what I was
going to do with Ali was really born
because he was, like,
very charming and very, like, childlike.
My car seems to have broken down.
Could you help me out, please?
[Uday] So I realized that
this is actually the hook that I needed.
That in Ali's mind, he's the coolest cat.
[chuckles] You know,
he has no idea that he is loud
and he's like a little bit not good
expressing in English, specifically.
Or that his ideas
about falling in love and all
are a little naive
and there's a childlike innocence to him.
[in Hindi]
Sweetheart, you're mine, I'm yours ♪
[in English] Ali is the only character
that tugs your heart, really, in Dhoom.
And I think Uday played it
really sweetly and really well.
And I think he came out
as the most lovable character.
Ali did all the tricks,
Ali had all the funny lines,
Ali had all the song and dance.
[Vijay] He never played a character
which was on the wrong side
of the tracks, as it were.
And it was a bit of a struggle for him.
Both the language
and the diction and everything.
[in Hindi] Hey, boss,
wrong rhyme. I'm no thief.
[Vijay in English] I thought
Uday was great in the film.
Everybody said,
"Man, I want a friend like Ali."
[in Hindi] She's gone. Now back to work.
[Ali exclaims]
[Dhoom theme song playing]
[Maneesh Sharma in English] I went to see
some other film. Don't remember which one.
We saw the trailer of Dhoom.
And the moment it said,
"Yash Chopra Presents,"
and somewhere,
"Produced by Aditya Chopra,"
we're like, "Wow!"
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[Maneesh in English]
Dhoom happening around that time
was also a sign that they are looking to
get into different genres.
You can see
the confluence of energy was changing.
[Abhishek] I'll never forget
the expression
on Yash Uncle and Dad's face
when the trailer of Dhoom first came.
It was a three-minute trailer,
and they came out
after almost half an hour, 45 minutes.
And we got to know that they'd
seen it on repeat some ten, 12 times.
I'll never forget that.
And they've come out,
and I remember Yash Uncle said,
[in Hindi] "The kids
have made a great picture."
[in English] I mean,
to get the great Yash Chopra to say,
"You guys have made a good film,"
that's the ultimate pat on your back.
[engine roaring]
It was the day of the release,
27th August, 2004.
I remember Adi called me on my mobile.
He was at the Vikas Park office.
He said, "Sit down."
I said, "Why, what happened?"
He said, "Congratulations,
you just gave your first hit."
["Dhoom Again" playing]
[Abhishek] And I just
remember going crazy.
I was crying, I was jumping up and down.
I have a little garden and he ran out
and he started, like, just jumping.
Because Abhishek
had not given a hit for many movies.
And then we went
to do some promotional work
and we were talking to people
who had just seen the movie,
and they were
just going crazy about the movie.
"This is what the youth wants.
You've given it to us."
Dhoom again and run away with me ♪
On a rollercoaster ride ♪
[Lilly Singh] I remember being
blown away by it.
Because I think it's the first
action movie I saw that was Bollywood.
Prior to that, most Bollywood films were
solely romantic, solely a love triangle.
Solely about parents' acceptance.
And Dhoom was like…
"God, this is our Mission: Impossible!"
There's action and there's stunts.
[John] We were
looked down upon as motorcyclists.
And I remember Adi telling me this.
"After this film, if motorcyclists
go out and rev their motorcycles,
we've got a hit film."
[engines revving]
[reporter] The biking craze
has caught on with movies like Dhoom.
Dealers say that there has been
a consistent rise from year to year
when it comes to the sale of sports bikes.
[John] Dhoom was a statement of rebellion
for all the youth in the country
that could not find an identity.
I wouldn't say it was all positive.
I wanted to rob a bank after that.
-[laughs]
-That was so smooth.
Let nothing get you down ♪
Go out and paint the town ♪
Let's shout, break out ♪
You know, I'm not gonna lie.
It did, in some twisted way,
gave me the confidence
to be like, "I could do a heist."
"I could. Me and my friends,
me and my cousins,
we could do a heist." [laughs]
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[in English] Day or two after that,
he was on the phone again saying,
"Okay, we got to do the next one.
It has to be bigger, better."
Party all the time ♪
Dhoom again, we got to steal the show ♪
[Hrithik] The impact that it made
at that point of time was incredible.
Dhoom is one of the largest
franchises in the country.
Nothing of the kind
had been attempted, executed,
or perfected,
which I think happened, uh…
Uh, you know, with each series of Dhoom,
it just went up a notch.
[in Hindi] Create a storm ♪
[Vijay in English] The production value,
I think, went way beyond Dhoom:1.
Way, way beyond.
Even the stars,
you know, Hrithik, Aishwarya,
the whole thing got upscaled.
[Lilly] It's fun, and it's beautiful.
Aesthetically pleasing.
And every time I watch a Western film
that's supposed to be
so aesthetically pleasing,
I'm not gonna lie,
I've a bit of a chip on my shoulder
'cause I'm like,
"Um, have you seen Dhoom?"
Let me introduce you to Dhoom.
So we had three big hits in one year
of completely varied genres.
I kind of got confidence that, you know,
I could…
I could handle this multiple filmmaking.
I… I could do this.
[Amitabh in Hindi] This is India.
Glistening, glittering, whispering…
[Aditya in English] I remember
distinctively, it was around 2005,
I think the country came together.
Uh, it was doing well.
[melodious song playing]
[in Hindi] Small town cocoons
These dull afternoons ♪
[Aditya in English]
The need to go abroad to succeed
went away because
so much corporatization happened.
So many multinationals came in
that we could do
pretty well where we are, you know.
This phase of this NRI fascination
started going down automatically
because the whole new generation
was finding success in India
by being Indian.
So when I started,
uh, writing Bunty Aur Babli,
the whole thing was,
"This desi stuff is really cool."
[song continues]
And there was a sense of,
"Hey, we're comfortable with who we are."
You know, "We don't
need to look westward to be cool."
"We're good."
[in Hindi] Dhadak dhadak, dhadak dhadak
Watch the smoke billow ♪
Dhadak dhadak, dhadak dhadak
Hear the whistle blow ♪
[Abhishek in English] Bunty Aur Babli
is one of the first films
that I can remember, during that era,
that made small-town India cool.
Where suddenly it went "desi,"
and said that,
"No, desi is also very cool."
[Jaideep] The same producer
and director, Adi,
he had literally invented
this whole NRI thing.
[chuckling] And he just spun around
on his axis overnight.
And it all just changed.
[Tanul] The popularity of Bunty Aur Babli
is the story of an alternate India.
I think it is the story
that the country was dying to hear.
[vocalizing]
[Namrata Rao] And the, sort of,
return to the heartland still continues.
[in Hindi] Call me, oh, watch me go ♪
[solemn music playing]
[Jaideep in English]
I saw a newspaper article
where the Indian women's hockey team, uh,
had won a big tournament.
And the way the, uh, journalist
had reported it made you so proud.
And the size of the column was this much.
And it just occurred to me that, like,
I didn't even know
we had a women's hockey team.
I wanted to do a documentary on them.
And when I spent time with them I realized
they just didn't have money
for even the most basic things.
When you're researching, you're not
supposed to get involved, but I did.
And then I went to everyone I knew
in advertising and marketing for sponsors.
Sports brands to health food brands
and ultimately came down to makeup brands.
But nobody gave any money,
and I remember I came down… [sniffles]
…to the National Stadium to meet the team
because I had made big promises.
And they couldn't change in the washrooms
because the bulbs
had been stolen long time back.
And it wasn't safe.
And, like, two girls would,
who were holding a jersey,
and the third one
would be changing behind the jersey.
They were using a jersey like a curtain,
and they said,
[in Hindi] "Brother,
did you have any luck?"
[in English] And I started crying.
I didn't know what to do.
I was feeling… I've never felt so, uh…
dejected and humiliated.
[imperceptible]
[Jaideep] We finished, uh,
the readings for Bunty Aur Babli,
and Adi said,
"What do you want to do next?"
And, uh, I said, "I have something,
a story which I really want to tell."
"And if I can't tell it,
then I'll just go back to Delhi."
"I don't want to tell any stories,
I don't like this stuff."
I told him about all the athletes I met,
all the girls and all the coaches,
and what they face
and, like, how they need to be famous.
And it all just came out
and he said, "Let's do it."
That's it. [chuckles]
-[whistle blows]
-[grunts]
-[crowd roaring]
-[yells]
[Namrata] The background
of this character, Kabir Khan,
is that he was
an exceptional hockey player for India.
[in Hindi] Do you think we lost
because someone sold out?
What did you say?
-[reporter] Kabir Khan.
-What did you say?
[reporter] Kabir Khan.
[Namrata in English]
And then he's accused of cheating
and supporting Pakistan
in an Indo-Pak match.
[woman sobbing]
TRAITOR
[somber music playing]
[in Hindi] Do not look there, son.
[Namrata in English]
And then many years later,
there's this Indian women's hockey team
which is being set up.
[in Hindi] You know
in a country like ours,
a women's team exists just as formality.
Not reality.
[Namrata in English]
And he initiates to coach them.
[Shah Rukh in Hindi] I am told that from
the 250 million girls in this country,
you are the 16 best hockey players.
[Tanul in English]
You don't see him play a character,
at least not with as much commitment
as he did in Chak De! India.
He is not a star at all.
In fact he's… After a point, he's somebody
who is not even driving the story.
It… it really becomes
a story of these, uh, 11 players.
It becomes a story of a team.
[whistles] Hey, baby, hey, hey.
[Maneesh] Chak De! is a phenomena.
[man groans]
[in Punjabi] Harassing girls,
are you? Try it!
[man exclaims]
[Maneesh] I'm talking about a collective
energy of going
for a Yash Raj-Shah Rukh Khan film
called Chak De! India,
sitting in the theater,
and seeing what we saw.
I've seen it at least 20 times.
[girls exclaiming]
[Namrata] It was
such a community experience.
Like, I watched Chak De!
here in a ladies' screening.
Everybody just screamed and whistled.
[in Hindi] How dare you tease a girl!
Acting too smart! Take this!
[Tanul in English] It's a film
that takes a close look at
what really comprises India.
You had these 11 players
from different parts of the country
with different linguistic,
regional and cultural differences,
that really set them apart.
Not a lot of Hindi films do that.
This concept of what constitutes India,
this concept of nationhood,
is mostly… the concept of North India.
Chak De! really broke that.
[in Hindi] Do something, do something
My veins are bursting ♪
[Tanul in English] Yash Raj Films,
even when it's talking about
the concepts of nationhood
and things like that,
it's never exclusionary.
I mean, even a film like Chak De! India,
at the most, it's a patriotic film.
[song continues]
[Namrata] India won the T20 World Cup
and this became the anthem for that.
In fact, the night
India won that World Cup,
everybody was out on the streets.
It was amazing… and singing this song.
[in Hindi]
Be stubborn if that is what it takes ♪
Do or die, all is at stake ♪
Be stubborn if that is what it takes
Do or die, all is at stake ♪
[Maneesh in English] It's a breakthrough
in Bollywood, hands down.
[in Hindi] Go, India! ♪
[Maneesh in English]
In terms of the gender discrimination,
or the women empowerment,
things or cinema like Chak De!
are the, uh,
torch-bearers for such changes.
[in Hindi] Go, India! ♪
[percussive music playing]
[Aditya in English] From 2005 onwards,
began that whole journey of
literally every director was homegrown
and we launched new directors.
And then we took this whole
nurturing of talent to the next step,
where we started to groom,
launch new actors.
Look into the camera.
Hi, what's your name?
Hi, my name is Neha Anand.
-[man] Uh, Neha, how old are you?
-Twenty-eight.
[Aditya] It began with, actually,
my own instinct as an audience,
that I felt
there was a certain fatigue coming.
I'm watching the same faces.
I think we need more people.
[man in Hindi]
Is this a joke? Is this a charade?
Not even ashamed of yourself.
For 20 years, I alone…
[Shanoo Sharma in English]
The thing is, I used to be a party animal.
What are we talking about?
Luckily, all the people I partied with,
today, are big directors and producers.
[laughs]
They'd be like,
"What do you think of the actor?"
And I'd be like, "I think that
they could be a bit of trouble later."
"I don't think it's a strong performance."
Blah, blah, blah.
So he would, like… All these people
would say, "You should cast."
I'd be like,
"I don't know what casting is."
-And then YRF came into the picture.
-Ready?
Camera rolling and action.
[interviewer] Where's some of the most
unusual places that you've found talent?
On the street, coffee shops, parks…
Like, if I walk into the jewelry store,
I could… I could find a girl there.
It could be anywhere.
[interviewer] What was
the first role that you cast
that was, like, your brilliant idea?
Ooh. [clicks tongue]
-Of course, Ranveer Singh. Yeah.
-[humming] All right.
Ma'am, you must ask me
about how I landed my first part.
[interviewer] So we have
another 30 minutes?
Yeah, let's roll it.
Roll the shit out of it.
[Band Baaja Baaraat theme playing]
[in Hindi] Bands, horns and revelry ♪
[Ranveer Singh in English]
I was okay at academics and sports.
I wasn't the best athlete
or the best student,
but I knew what my natural abilities are.
The teachers used to point it out as well.
They were like, "You really do have
that bone in you, you know,
to be an entertainer."
It wasn't so simple though,
because the Hindi film industry,
for the longest number of years,
was, uh, very closed.
I'm talking around
the turn of the century, you know,
2000, when you'd look around
and you'd see that everybody's
the son of somebody, you know.
And I thought to myself, "My chances
are really slim. Like, a million to one."
[in Hindi]
There are loads and loads of dreams ♪
[Ranveer in English] So I met this
very, very interesting person,
Shanoo Sharma, at a party.
I had given up on wanting to be an actor.
She hadn't decided on her career path.
But we became friends.
And I went to university
and got my degree, I came back,
and she actually
got me my first few auditions.
[Aditya] So we were making this film,
and she already had this guy
and, uh, she was very gung-ho about him.
And she showed me
some pictures and a video.
[interviewer] Is that Ranveer Singh
Bhavnani or Ranveer Singh?
-Ranveer Singh.
-[interviewer] Ranveer Singh.
And here she was showing me
this scruffy-looking guy
and he is very loud, and…
…really fun experience.
I've met some really cool people.
I mean, in the photos,
he really looked not good.
I fired her actually.
I said, "What's wrong with you?"
"No, I don't think so."
And I was like,
"No, just send him in for a test."
So I tried to get in touch with Ranveer
and, as usual, he was really busy
on a date
or something like that. And I just…
Finally, I stopped calling
and I just wrote "Adi Chopra." [chuckles]
I was like… [exclaiming]
She then auditioned him for the part.
Slate introduction, "My name is Ranveer."
"I haven't done anything
other than theater before."
"These are my profiles…"
And this assistant…
[laughs]
…was a warm, young lady,
whose name was Bhumi Pednekar.
[laughs]
[imperceptible]
And Bhumi was very,
like, very professional.
You know, she was really…
Her manner of going about it
was really putting me at ease.
The only reason
I was able to give a good audition
was because she
was performing the scene with me.
[in Hindi] You left for office?
You're back home.
Reached office? Back home.
[Aditya in English] And I just
couldn't take my eyes off him.
He was just riveting.
He was charismatic,
he was attractive while he was acting.
I was like exulting,
literally with my hands in the air.
"Yes, yes!" I couldn't believe
I got a callback the same evening.
They had never launched, uh, a new face,
um, a new male face, up until this point.
So, this was unprecedented.
I went back to the same office.
Can they park the car?
[in Hindi] Counting on these scoundrels?
They're not worthy.
[in English] Uh,
and I start reading with Anushka,
with Habib sitting there,
Maneesh sitting there and it's a disaster.
[somber music playing]
I couldn't get past that audition.
They said, "Let's try him again,"
they called me back the next day.
Performed a scene on camera with Anushka.
Absolutely disastrous.
[woman in Hindi] Excuse me, who are you?
[Ranveer in English] And the door opens
few minutes later, boom, walks in who,
I've never seen this individual,
but I know that this is Aditya Chopra.
He was like, yeah… He finishes, he's like…
"So, why are you screwing it up?"
He was like, "Look, kid,
you were great in your first few auditions
and you've been terrible after that."
[chuckles]
He said a bunch of other things.
Um…
He said, "When I saw you audition,
I saw…
a 25-year career in front of me."
He's like,
"I've not seen an audition like that."
"I saw it then and there, in that moment."
And he was like,
"So we've decided to go with you."
And I slumped down to my knees
and I started crying. [voice breaks]
[chuckles]
That was it.
[chuckles]
[dance music playing]
[in Hindi] Love is splendid ♪
[Ranveer in English] You know,
now when you ask him,
he said,
"I decided after your first audition
that I was going to launch you."
I said, "How?"
Because nobody else saw it.
Not the writer, not the director, not the…
not the co-actor. Nobody… nobody saw it.
Only he saw it.
[in Hindi] It's a euphoria ♪
It's riveting ♪
It's a euphoria ♪
[in English] It released on Friday
and on Monday I was famous.
You know, it was almost…
Almost literally overnight.
[in Hindi] It's a euphoria ♪
[Aditya in English] It's always risky
to launch, uh, newcomers.
So Ranveer was a risk,
but I had gained enough experience
to understand that,
you know, audiences don't really
care about where you come from.
They care about what they see on screen.
And I kind of saw that
two years before Ranveer, in Anushka,
when I launched her.
It just seemed like
a very far-fetched sort of idea
'cause I come from
an absolutely non-film background.
I didn't know anybody
who worked in movies. Not a single person.
[Aditya] At YRF,
I have a very, very simple belief.
I want the best talent. It doesn't matter
to me where they come from.
[Anushka Sharma] After a while,
Adi called me.
He said, "Look, I am definitely
going to launch you."
It was huge for somebody like me
who came from Bangalore,
who did not grow up in this world.
[Ayushmann Khurrana]
Of course, in early 2000s,
if I was, like, an aspiring actor,
this wouldn't have been possible.
It's just that the casting system
in our country has changed so much.
Currently, if you are talented,
you just go to a casting director.
You'll get the opportunity
if you're good. It's that simple.
That was not the case 20 years back.
[Aditya] There are more people
who are successful in the industry
who have not been part of any lineage
than ever before.
[interviewer] Do you
come from a film family?
Not at all.
And I come from
a very, very middle-class background.
I've worked my way up.
We're like a very filmy family.
We don't belong to, uh, the film industry,
but we love Hindi cinema.
My… my family's very creative, but I
don't come from an actor-film family.
[singer vocalizing]
[Aditya] I think
what has happened over the years
is the industry has grown,
and with that growth,
the need
for a lot more diversity has happened.
And because of that, I think,
as filmmakers,
you're constantly looking for
different talent, different voices.
[crowd cheering]
[Aditya] Yes,
if you are born into a film family,
or you are friendly with film people,
there's no doubt
that there could be an easier in
to getting a meeting, getting an audition,
even probably getting a break.
But it just stops there.
[imperceptible]
[solemn music playing]
[Uday] When Dhoom happened,
I was always trying
to make it in as a mainstream actor,
still that "hero" tag,
trying to be like, you know,
the star that sells the movies.
I'm trying to still head
towards that direction, right?
And if I think about it,
I should've taken Ali as an example
and done more roles like that.
Again, a lot of offers came after Dhoom,
[chuckles] which I didn't take,
uh, because I was
trying to get into a space
which probably wasn't meant for me.
[Aditya] Uday is a very talented actor.
He's very hard-working.
But for whatever reason,
an audience did not want to see him
the way he wanted to see himself.
They loved him in comedy,
he didn't want to do comedy.
When I started acting, I was very naive.
I… I went in with the idea
that everyone will love me. [chuckles]
You know, I… I didn't imagine
that people might not like me.
Okay? I am going out
with Tanya, okay? She'll leave.
-[Jugal] Your body has to…
-And what, look at her when I get up?
No, you look at the phone.
[Uday] The conversations that were
happening about me weren't really great.
People kept saying that I'm…
You know, I'm not successful,
I'm not a good actor,
and even though, like,
I've had successful movies,
it doesn't matter
because the perception
has started going down the path
that he's just,
you know, the child of nepotism,
as people say in Bollywood today.
And, uh, it did affect me a lot.
[Aditya] Then at one point,
I think he kind of
decided on his own, that, you know,
"Probably this is not for me,
'cause I'm not going to…
I'm not going to be able
to find the kind of success I want to."
"So let me start to step away from this
and let me start to do something else."
[interviewer] Do you think
you'll ever act again?
Maybe. I don't know.
I mean,
I think if I do get back to acting,
it would be more as a hobby. [chuckles]
So today, I'm not bound by this idea
that I have to make this my career
and, you know, reach that pinnacle.
Today, it could just be like,
"Oh, this is an interesting character."
"I want you to be
Master Jedi, Kai Chang-ii." [laughs]
I'll go play that for sure.
If JJ comes to me,
I would be like, "Yeah." [laughs]
[pensive music playing]
[Pamela Chopra] A father is always happy
to see his son go ahead than him.
You see, this is one relationship
which doesn't allow any
jealousy or envy, or anything.
Yash made up his mind that,
"I'm not going to compete anymore
with the younger directors."
"Let them have a field day."
"I had a field day when I was younger
and let those boys
also have their chance."
But I know one thing,
that he was very happy
that Adi was slowly taking over.
In fact, I heard him say one night,
"Adi is handling the office so well,
I think I can now die with grace."
I said, "Don't say that, please."
[closing theme music playing]