Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 10, 2017)

Rohit Shetty admits that right now he’s going crazy. While filming Golmaal Again in Hyderabad and Goa, featuring Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Parineeti Chopra, Tusshar Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade and Kunal Kemmu, he’s was also brainstorming on his upcoming reality show, Khatron Ke Khiladi (KKK), which he is hosting in its eighth season. “I’m shooting Golmaal Again till May 17 and the following morning I’m taking off to Spain for KKK. Once I’m back in July, I’ll resume shooting for the film for another 10-15 days. We have to be ready for a Diwali release,” he rattles off.

He’s glad that a clash with the Robot sequel, 2.0, has been averted with the makers of the Rajinikanth-Akshay Kumar starrer pushing the release to Republic Day, 2018. “My film has shaped up well and I’m glad we have a good window to add to the business. All the Golmaal films have come on Diwali,” he points out, adding that they’ve been having so much fun that recently when it was just Ajay and Shreyas on the set, they whined that “mazaa nahin aa raha hai” and asked him to call the others even if they were not needed.

Buzz is, he’s planning to collaborate with Ranveer Singh for a film next. The filmmaker confirms this, saying, “Yes, I am planning a film with Ranveer Singh, we are in talks.”

Rohit’s last release, Diwale, the Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon-starrer, met with a lukewarm response. He admits that if he could revisit the film, he’d do things differently. “We should’ve stuck to our original script. We changed it too much. We shouldn’t have done that. But such things happen,” he shrugs.

Will he team up with SRK again? “Right now there’s Golmaal Again and KKK, after that there another film. Maybe in the future,” he muses, admitting that even the Ram-Lakhan remake has been put on the backburner. “I’ll be doing something else soon, after that we will make that announcement.”

He goes on to acknowledge that after Bol Bachchan was aired on TV recently, people have been asking him about this sequel too. “I waited for the right script for Golmaal, ditto Bol Bachchan,” he says.

For now Rohit is excited about taking over from Arjun Kapoor, who hosted KKK last season, and insists that this did not create any bad blood between the two. “Arjun actually called to ask me what he should say at the press conference and I told him to say that he was going to be hosting the show in the seventh season because I was busy with Dilwale,” he says.

He adds that his role on KKK goes beyond that of a host and he’s involved in every aspect, right from the planning stage. Also, there is an emotional attachment because in the time lag before the show re-launched. “We worked on everything, from the stunts to the humour. I am busy this year too but I had to do it. I’m personally associated with the stunts and that works for me as well as the show in a big way. If you are not involved in the stunts, then it’s just another show where you give your comments and sit quietly,” he reasons, saying he is looking forward to making wrestler Geeta Phogat do stunts. “I haven’t interacted with any of the contestants yet. I want them to be surprised with what we have planned in Spain.”