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Destiny's child
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Radhika Rao talks of her journey from University of Hyderabad through `Kaanta Laga' to `Lucky' in this exclusive chat with MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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TELL RADHIKA RAO that she has made it in the entertainment industry, and pat comes the reply, "Hardly," which seems rather modest for someone who shook the nation's moral police with the super raunchy Kaanta Laga and Kaliyon ka Chaman and is now preparing for the release of the Salman-starrer Lucky.
Radhika is a woman who definitely knows what she wants - as is clear when she categorically states she does not "do solo interviews. My partner Vinay Sapru and I are together on Lucky like everything else we have done, so either you talk to both of us or neither."
After being assured that instructions would be faithfully followed, Radhika thaws and takes a happy trip down memory lane. "I did my graduation from St Francis and post-graduation in Mass Com from Sarojini Naidu School of Fine Arts. I passed out eight years ago, got a job with Plus Channel and came to Mumbai."
"I was a rookie doing regular stuff like TV shows. I quit and started free-lancing. That is when I met Vinay. He had his agency called Aquarius and was doing corporate films and he asked me to write a script. I wrote it and the script was approved and Vinay suggested that we work together. That was eight years ago."
Creative clashes "never happen because we ironed out our differences in the first three months itself and now we do not know what to do if the other is not there."
Music videos happened "at a time when it was trendy to make music videos. We made many good and not-so-good videos." Questions about Kaanta Laga provokes a groan and, "why are we talking about this it is so old now?"
So we move to the hot and happening Lucky, which "took eight months to write. Salman was always the first choice." The switch from music video to film was not a big change as "we were shooting music videos on film. So it is the same medium. But yes we had gotten kind of tired after Kaanta Laga doing the same thing over and over again and we were ready for a change. It was not that we were desperate or anything like that, things just fell in place."
The future depends on how "Lucky fares. We would like to do documentaries and ad films." Radhika's family home is at Gunrock Enclave but now her parents divide their time between Mumbai and Melbourne where Radhika's sister stays. "I am planning to go to Melbourne and spend time with my sister after the film is released. I need a break."
Radhika is a fan of ANR movies. "The last Telugu film I saw was Seetharamaiahgari Manavaralu. Given a chance I would love to direct a Telugu movie." Marriage seems far in the future for the dynamic young woman as all the "nice Telugu guys have run away! They do not seem to want to marry a filmmaker in Mumbai!"
Radhika feels the Hyderabadi can rock the entertainment industry "if they were a little more courageous, a little braver and followed their dream."
Land of far beyond
VINAY SAPRU always "wanted to be a filmmaker. Even though I did my Chartered accountancy, I knew I wanted to make films so I started off with financial films." Talking about the choice of - believe it or faint - Russia for Lucky, Vinay explains, "the movie is a love story, a fable."
"It has all these fairy tale elements - a knight in shining armour, a damsel in distress... so the setting had to be dreamlike, misty and enchanted. We were looking for something out of Arabian nights, a place with domed ceilings, minarets and spires - this led us to Russia and St Petersburg."
"We also needed a place where a person would get lost and Russia was perfect as everything is in Russian there - from the signposts to McDonalds is all in Russian!"
"The logistics were mind boggling. First there was the cold - it was minus 18 degrees Celsius. And then there was the language. Every single thing had to be interpreted from instructions to the light boy to catering everything had to be translated. All of us had our personal interpreters."
The story is about the ultimate dreamer Lucky (Sneha Ullal) who meets sophisticated and charming Aditya Sekhri (Salman Khan) when the city of St Petersburg is under siege. The duo need to find their way out and helping them along is P. D. Kapoor, (Mithun Chakraborty) a world weary retired Army officer.
Ask Vinay about his equation with Radhika and he laughs heartily. "You know we have this in-joke where I tell Radhika that I am the Aryan ruler and I need a Dravidian to run my empire! But seriously we are totally democratic and there is no question of ideological conflict as we invariably come to the same conclusions."
"Like I am sure Radhika did not tell you this - but she has had a childhood crush on Salman Khan. And as far as I am concerned, Salman fitted the bill as the hero in the truest sense of the word."
When pressed for any creative clash, Vinay laughs and says, "Yes we disagreed on whether Salman should take off his shirt or not!
The Salman effect
SALMAN KHAN has a champion in Radhika Rao. "Give the man a break," she says when quizzed about the Khan's enfant terrible image. "He was the very personification of professionalism. There were no tantrums, no starry nakhras nothing. He reported on time and worked hard."
About Salman's reputation as a prankster, Radhika says, "Come on, everyone is entitled to a bit of fun. When you are working on a 65-day-schedule, there is no law saying you cannot have a little fun is there?"
"Lucky is an out and out romantic film, the Georgette Heyer, Mills and Boon kind of movie and Salman just fits the bill."
And of course the question every girl would be dying to know - are we getting Salman with his shirt or without? "With his shirt yaar! It was too cold to bare that famous chest!"
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