Showing posts with label Krishna DK interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Krishna DK interview. Show all posts
The Family Man creators Raj-DK reveal that Jaideep Ahlawat’s character name Rukmangadha came from their childhood slang
9:57 AM
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; November 23, 2025)
The new season of The Family Man opens in festive Kohima, Nagaland — celebrations cut short by a blast that triggers further explosions across the state. The scene shifts to the Tiwaris during the griha-pravesh of their new home, setting the tone for season three of what has become India’s biggest OTT spy franchise. It arrives almost four years after the previous instalment, and creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK admit that expectations and pressure have only grown.
“There’s no real conviction when you start writing,” DK laughs. “You’re constantly aware that the target is already 350 runs ahead. The attempt is always to outdo your own previous season, and that’s a huge mountain to climb.”
Before they tackled geopolitics and narrative twists, the duo found joy in naming their characters — none more so than Shrikant Tiwari. Raj explains, “The whole idea was James Bond is so cool especially when he says, ‘My name is Bond, James Bond. You can never do, ‘My name is Tiwari, Shrikant Tiwari’,” he laughs. “So the idea was to be the opposite of the cool and suave we see on screen.”
They loved the term ‘Shri’. “In our heads he was ‘Shri agent’, like a respected agent. That word meant a lot to us.” Jaideep Ahlawat’s Rukmangadha comes from their childhood slang. “In Tirupati, whenever someone was ajeeb and undefinable, we would call them Rukmangadha,” Raj recalls.
Nimrat Kaur’s Meera reflects the contrast of Meera Bai — purity positioned inside the murky world of arms dealing. “We wanted that contradiction.” Raj likens it to outlaw nicknames like Babyface — soft on paper, deadly in reality.
Raj & DK say new cast members Kaur and Ahlawat have expanded their vision. DK notes, “We imagine the character first, but a great actor comes in and expands what we’ve imagined. They bring their own spice, internal logic, and the show grows because of it.”
Season three also pushes scale and action. Raj says Manoj Bajpayee and Ahlawat’s commitment to driving their own action scenes, removed the need for camera cheats. “The shot literally travels from Manoj to Jaideep on a moving vehicle and we needed that authenticity. The scale, ambition, and stakes are bigger.” They also place familiar characters in unfamiliar terrains, creating new dynamics.
With parts of the season set against the backdrop of the recent Northeast conflict, they emphasize balance. DK says, “Our idea has always been to build fiction on top of real incidents — things inspired by newspaper headlines. But at its heart, The Family Man is entertainment. That comes first.”
Aamir Khan saw our short film Shot and he hired the DOP for Dhobi Ghat-Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK
10:31 AM
Director duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK speak on giving up careers in the US to make movies in India and how they will use their OTT learnings for a film in 2024
Natasha Coutinho (BOMBAY TIMES; January 11, 2024)
They are the poster boys of Indian OTT in 2023, with Farzi and Guns & Gulaabs as the two standout shows of the year. Some of the biggest stars – Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Shahid Kapoor and Varun Dhawan – have signed with them for their OTT debuts. But more than plain success, what drives filmmaker duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK is the thirst to tell new stories.
“After Shor In The City, people thought we would make a Salaam Bombay! kind of film. But we made Go Goa Gone, a zombie movie!” says Raj. But then, these two have been breaking the mould regularly – right from the time they chucked their engineering careers in the US to come back to India and make films. Excerpts from the chat:
Over the years, the two of you have created a gallery of characters who belong to a moral twilight zone.
Raj Nidimoru: When we started off in Mumbai, everything was hero-driven, and all of it was about hero worship. So, we thought we should bring the guy (the hero) down to earth, hence we made 99, Shor In The City and Go Goa Gone, where the protagonist is a nobody, and his value system isn’t black or white.
Krishna DK: While our characters are fictitious, they are inspired by real life, where no one is one hundred per cent good or bad. Even the antagonist has a story, about why they are bad. We usually try to give the bad guy one redeeming quality. Mansoor (Kay Kay Menon) in Farzi is the antagonist, but you also feel the pressure he is under and why he is doing what he is doing.
Raj: Even Atmaram (Gulshan Devaiah) in Guns & Gulaabs was abused.
Major stars like Shahid Kapoor, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Varun Dhawan have made or are making their OTT debut with you. Is that an added pressure?
DK: It’s not really pressure, since they already knew what they were getting into. OTT is an actor’s – and not a star’s – medium.
Raj: It’s a learning experience for them too, and they come with so much of energy and excitement.
DK: That’s the conversation we have with actors. ‘You have done so many films, but you will have to be the character for longer and put in that much extra effort’. These are actors who have been working for years, but now we are the experienced ones when it comes to OTT.
What’s the story behind two software engineers giving up life in the US to pursue their dream of making films in India?
Raj: We were doing very well as engineers, but the cookie-cutter life and the monotony of a nine-to-five job drove me out.
DK: For my family, my life’s biggest achievement was that I went to the US as an engineer. But then we decided to cancel all of it and come back home. My mom thought it was a hobby. After we made one independent film, my family thought I would return to the engineering job. It’s when we decided to make a film in Hindi that they realized that we were serious about it.
Your works as creators/ producers/directors constantly cross genres — heist, horror, comedy, thriller. What did the two of you watch growing up?
Raj: Both of us grew up in small towns of Andhra Pradesh. We would watch every movie running in the theatres – good or bad. We’d watch Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and dubbed Malayalam films. Regional films were always a major influence, but it was in the US that we discovered American indie films and global cinema.
DK: We were especially fascinated with filmmakers’ first breakthrough movies – Russo brothers’ Welcome To Collinwood or Christopher Nolan’s Memento and Following. If you want to learn about a filmmaker’s true personality, you must watch their work in the formative years, when they don’t have the world at their command.
How was the experience of moving from a tech job to filmmaking?
Raj: For our film Flavors (2003), almost everyone was from IT or similar fields. Even the DOP (director of photography) was a steady cam operator! We would hold the mics ourselves and the shoot was entirely in sync sound. We would borrow shopping carts from Walmart and use it as a trolley. Then, one of the actors had finished shooting his part and had flown off and was not accessible. But we needed to do a reshoot, so I had to wear his clothes and we had to do it in a way that my face wouldn’t show. We even learnt editing on the job. By the time we made 99 (2009) and Shor in the City (2011), we were very hands-on. And this training took away all your fears.
Even as new filmmakers, you made a splash with Shor In The City and Go Goa Gone. How did that happen?
Raj: We had zero connections in the industry and no idea about permissions required to shoot. But we shot a short film (Shor, which is the genesis of Shor In The City) with some FTII students. That was a film that a lot of people ended up watching.
DK: Aamir Khan saw that film and he hired the DOP for Dhobi Ghat! As for Saif, he is the first person to admit he’s crazy when it comes to creative stuff. When we narrated the concept of Go Goa Gone, he couldn’t believe we were making a zombie comedy.
Raj: After The Family Man’s success, people were expecting another series in the same vein, which is also why we wanted to do something different with Farzi.
Having worked on films and in OTT what’s your take on the good and bad of both?
Raj: People say Farzi and Guns & Gulaabs should have been films. Our take is that regardless of the medium, our work must entertain and offer a fresh take on the genre. We plan to put our learnings from OTT into a film next year. Not having to worry about the box office in the OTT space does make a difference. There’s no studio pressure to have a song-and-dance break.
DK: There is still pressure to perform, just that it comes in a different form. There are no immediate numbers to show how much money your series made, but from the discussions on social media, you understand if people are liking it. Writing eight episodes for OTT is difficult, but it allows you to go deeper than a film. You must look at the two formats differently, just like in cricket, where you play T20 and one-day matches differently, though both require talent and a knack for the game.
Increasingly, there are reports of certain sections of the audience getting offended by the portrayal of a community. How do you deal with controversies like the portrayal of Tamilians in The Family Man?
Raj: There was nothing inflammatory, just the fact that the subject made some people assume it was negative. Now everybody has a voice on social media, and when you have so many voices, somebody is going to be affected by something.
DK: A lot of times the controversial voices will be enhanced, that’s just the nature of things. When the trailer of The Family Man released, some people assumed that Sri Lankan Tamilians were being portrayed badly. We immediately put out a statement. As filmmakers, one has to be responsible. We don’t set out to offend or shock anybody.
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OTT’s like we’re putting the actors on stage, in front of a live audience, something they haven’t done before. So, it’s a learning experience for them too
– Raj Nidimoru
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OTT is an actor’s – and not a star’s – medium. You cannot charm the audience for eight episodes. You need to be a nuanced, talented actor
– Krishna DK
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When we narrated the concept of Go Goa Gone to Saif, he couldn’t believe we were making a zombie comedy. In an hour, he had almost finished reading (the script) and was laughing away, saying, ‘Mujhe yeh karna hai’
– Krishna DK
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Rapid fire
Your favourite film from your own filmography
Raj and DK: Go Goa Gone and Stree
One film or OTT series of 2023 that left a mark on you
Raj and DK: Kaala Paani
An actor/ actress you really want to work with
Raj: Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone – all really strong actors
DK: Aamir Khan and Mr Bachchan have always been on our list too
The working title for Guns & Gulaabs was backbenchers-Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK
8:09 AM
With their new offering Guns & Gulaabs, the duo of Raj and DK ride their special brand of levity
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; August 20, 2023)
When you think of Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK—the screenwriter, director and producer duo collectively known as Raj & DK—and their work, you think gritty but funny; raw but aesthetic; simple but also worldly-wise. The duo has always built varied worlds—zombies in Goa (Go Goa Gone), the bland superficial life of a secret NIA agent (The Family Man), or a tale of a counterfeiting businessman (Farzi)… And now a story of love and romance set in the 90s against the backdrop of crime and drugs in Uttarakhand.
When we meet the two, they are as relaxed and fun as their art. It takes a minute for them to get comfortable in front of the camera, and Raj explains, “Interviews I am fine with, it’s the posing that’s a problem.”
But pose they must—when everything you have done has been successful, then people want to see more of you. Guns & Gulaabs, which premiered last week on Netflix, is set in the fictional town of Gulaabgunj where an opium deal draws big-city cop (Dulquer Salmaan) and a lovesick mechanic (Rajkummar Rao) into its grasp. It starts with a bunch of school kids who come across a murder and a deal gone wrong.
“The seed of the idea had been around for a while,” says DK. “It started with the idea of the innocence of a simple world. These children are growing up in a place where there is a lot of crime. Then the characters too shape—the common thread is that they are simple…”
Raj comes in: “…and it’s a coming-of-age story. These are not people you find on the frontlines, we call them backbenchers—that was our working title. The bigger point was to make a fun series…”
“Aren’t all your series fun series?” we ask. They both laugh.
“The idea was to spell out F-U-N,” says DK, and Raj adds, “It was a larger theme maybe—the drama is not big drama…” “They are not saving the country,” DK dives back in, “There is a lot of pulp—there’s an element of cheese in it—but it’s crafted cheese.”
The two, who grew up in Tirupati and Chitoor before heading to America to study software engineering, have the Indian aesthetic down pat. In Guns, they take an Andhra story to Uttarakhand. “It’s universal; our hometown/childhood stories can easily be transposed to different parts of the country. We chose Uttarakhand because of the terrain and weather—it was apt for the story.”
Their shows and movies also encapsulate the middle-class and their struggles—and the things we do to protect our loved ones and vested interests.
Where do they get their ideas? If fact is crazier than fiction, then their process of reading newspapers and jotting down the crazy happenings is the best one. “I used to have diaries—many lay unused, but it made it a habit,” says Raj, “You file away things. Now, it happens in my head. Newspapers were a big source.” For DK, “Newspapers formed the foreground of The Family Man and Shor In The City. Even Farzi came from an article we read about a flamboyant counterfeiter who turned out to be the highest tax payer.”
While Guns… is set against the backdrop of the opium drug trade, much like their other series, there’s a huge dose of humour. And not just straight-faced funniness, but the dark sharp type that erupts at funerals. “I think it comes from life itself,” says Raj. “I do that,” adds DK, “I make light of the situation and people may think that’s not funny.”
“It’s good to have humour,” Raj interjects, “it makes life easier. When we had a crisis on the set, we often found levity. That’s what we tend to do. Anything could be funny.”
By now if we hadn’t got into movies, we'd be the founders of Amazon-Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
8:29 AM
Decoding Raj & DK, the unlikeliest Bollywood directors to claim the ‘family audience’!
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; October 9, 2021)
If this was a Bollywood script, a la DDLJ, we’d start from the exact moment Raj, first locks eyes with Krishna (since no Simran) — perhaps coming down the steps of Tirupati’s Sri Venkateswara University College of Engineering (SVUCE), on their first day in college, with an imagined mandolin tune playing in the background. Somewhere, knowing, because destiny is such, that they’d live together to make Bollywood movies, for babies, happily ever after!
But of course, this is not a Bollywood script. Neither do the typically indie-looking, under-stated Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, former engineering classmates from SVUCE, seem like massy Bollywood directors. But they’re as A-list as it gets. If you consider their filmography, that features top-shelf traditional to new Bollywood altogether.
Starting with Saif Ali Khan (Go Goa Gone, 2013), then pairing Saif with Govinda (Happy Ending, 2014), going berserk with Sidharth Malhotra (A Gentleman, 2017), a li’l bit. Casting Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor in the year’s sleeper super-hit, Stree (2018).
Not to forget, placing late ’90s Satya’s Manoj Bajpayee back into stratospheric stardom, with The Family Man, Seasons 1 (2019) & 2 (2021). There’s also a Shah Rukh Khan film lined up, which will go on floors, they say, once SRK’s schedules match — since the superstar has enjoyed their script narration, and is very much up for the part.
Who’re these guys, man, and how did their stars so align in a city where everyone sits around with a script? No, there was no meet-cute moment in college, when they first met. Of which they don’t even remember exactly when, or how. As it happens only in desi Nerd Land, they were quiz teammates in college. “Not those general knowledge type quizzes, haan?” DK clarifies. “Music and movie quizzes — where they play songs and ask to identify the singer or composer, or name the movie [from a clip], or who is the director, that kind of stuff.”
This is where I’m guessing they got to collectively express their film geekery — about as much outlet the Nerd Land in the ’90s allowed you, once you’ve signed up for an engineering programme, I guess. The next destination is obviously a ‘starting salary’ (‘package’, best if earned in dollars), pursuing computer programming in the US, living thence the great suburban American dream. Ditto for Raj & DK.
Both are originally from Andhra Pradesh. Telugu is their mother tongue, although English is as much their first language. They’re trained engineers, of course, who eventually moved to Mumbai, to make movies. Starting off with an independent film (99, starring Kunal Kemmu), in Hindi — hardly their strongly suit, in fact decidedly their weak link; gradually veering toward more mainstream Bollywood.
Sounds like both Ram Gopal Varma and Nagesh Kukunoor to me. What’s happening in Andhra — you hardly hear similar stories about directors from other states in the South! “Well, I don’t think Ram Gopal Varma is the same graph [as us]. He went directly with an explosive [start],” Raj corrects me. And he’s right.
Varma’s debut Shiva (1990) was indie, only for a Hindi audience. It starred Nagarjuna, which is blockbuster-grade in Telugu cinema already. The stunning response to which had Bollywood roll out the red carpet for Varma. Although Raj admits, “With Kukunoor, initially, yes, as engineers-turned-screen writers, we were seeing parallels quite a bit, actually. Because he produced Hyderabad Blues, when we were [making our debut film] Flavors in the US.”
What was the flavour of Raj & DK’s debut film like? It had a very American Born Confused Desi (ABCD) vibe to it — a growing sub-genre in the early noughties, with stories about Indian expats and migrants, before Indian-American found more mainstream space in American pop-culture about a decade after.
These movie DVDs were usually available at side sections of desi rental stores in Indian neighbourhoods abroad, that otherwise stocked popular Indian cinema. Low-budget English language indies would include titles like American Desi, American Chai, Green Card Fever, Leela… With local female actors like Sheetal Sheth, Purva Bedi, and often a male character called Krishna, snipped to Krish, who’s confused between both his identities. At least that’s my perfunctory memory of it.
Flavors (2003) as an ensemble cast, slice of life comedy/drama is superior to its then sub-genre, I realise, having caught it on YouTube recently. This is also the same time a shrub of English language Indian films, made by directors for an audience more at ease with English, was growing in India as well. Possibly helped, if not heralded by the cult-like success of Kukunoor’s Hyderabad Blues (1998).
Rahul Bose was almost the poster boy of this Mumbai sub-genre — English August, Snip, Split Wide Open, Everybody Says I’m Fine… Soon enough, Bose once told me, producers in Bombay figured that if they simply changed the film’s language from English to Hindi in, say a movie like Jhankaar Beats, the audience multiplies few times over, automatically. That was the end of the English vinglish shrub!
Raj & DK suggest they knew this already: They knew their “sensibilities were niche” to start with, especially making a “small film” about Indian-Americans, in America, which was not going to be “mainstream, commercial, anyway.” If they stuck to English, even that small audience would get shaved off by many eventually picking up the picture [pirated] online. How do you widen that niche? “By [at least] taking the whole country as our audience, rather than one state [Telugu].” Hence Hindi, which is what Flavors is mostly in.
A decade-and-half later, with the advent of OTT platforms in particular, DK says, “We’ve come to a place, where we are letting the characters speak the language they are most comfortable in. A case in point being The Family Man, Season 1 & 2. While the primary language is Hindi, there are characters who speak English, Tamil, Malayalam, right? That’s a nice space to be in.”
In fact, given the setting —around hideouts of Sri Lanka, among militants of LTTE —The Family Man Season 2 could, for a fair portion, pass off as a Tamil series altogether. And no one seemed to mind, even as it was aimed at a mainstream, family audience — bachhe, boodhe, jawaan — otherwise unused to subtitled entertainment. The other thumb-rule The Family Man Season 2 broke was the ‘curse of the second season’ — the sequel never living up to the love for the original. The post-screening excitement went a few notches up in fact.
But we’ve jump-cut too far. Might be a good idea to go back to DDLJ’s Raj & DK, college mates from SVUCE, who went their separate ways, although within America. They stayed in touch with each other, and with their shared infatuation for films.
Raj hated his job: “It was a huge struggle for me and it kind of gets reflected in Shrikant Tiwari [in The Family Man], being stuck in a job.” “Actually you’ll find this comment on corporate culture in a lot of our films,” DK says, although he wasn’t particularly going through a hard time. He jokes, “By now if we hadn’t got into movies, I’d be the founder of Amazon.”
There are many such sarcastic ones slipped in, with a deadpan expression, throughout this conversation. Which is quite emblematic of their works too — all of which, in some form or the other, have been comedies. Even while they deal with zombies, ghosts, spies or Shor In The City! DK seems the more fun/chilled/gregarious one, while Raj comes across as the serious sort. Although it’s hard to tell for sure.
In the US, working their corporate jobs, living out their long-distance friendship still, Raj was based in Detroit; DK was in Minneapolis: “a significant distance.” At some point, they decided to test their filmmaking skills with a short film, that they shot in Detroit.
DK recalls, “Every Friday, I used to wrap up my software job, have a flight to catch, land in Detroit, we’d shoot Saturday, Sunday, and I’d catch the first flight back on Monday. We did this for about six to seven weeks in a row.” “And he holds the record for missing the return flight seven times in a row,” Raj reminds.
The wrap party, after the schedule, may have been the reason, I’m pretty sure. “No man,” sighs DK, “I am telling you, we are engineers. We didn’t know the concept of a wrap party. We were these people sitting around and planning stuff.” Raj chips in, “We are probably the sanest filmmakers you would associate with a film like Go Goa Gone!”
Even after their debut feature Flavors, Raj went back to his day-job, and DK had been a consultant all along anyway. This prompts DK to offer a piece to aspiring filmmakers, “Don’t quit your day job just yet — keep it going. You will need money, once you’ve used up every ounce of savings to make your first movie. You won’t know when you are going to make that money back.”
This is a cautionary, practical note, to keep both Indian parents and the bank teller happy — quite separate from the ‘3 Idiots’ credo of simply chasing a chimera in a vacuum.
But you gotta get a regular job first, no? Raj & DK held highly employable professional degrees. It’s not common among artistes. Especially if you consider the popular, although debatable theory, on the right and the left brain — wherein the former primarily controls our creative impulses; while on the latter, rests the analytical/logical side. Both never being equal for all.
In mentioning this theory, I may have chanced upon how Raj & DK actually function as a successful writer-director unit. Not that DK can have another nickname, unless you add Bose to tick him off, Raj says, “DK is also known by everyone as Logic King. I am extending logic to a broad sense of the term — understanding sensibilities, structure [of a script], and if it makes sense for a scene or character to be somewhere. That’s his core strength. [With him around] I’ve stopped using the left side of the brain. He is just technically super-sound — from cinematography, that is dealing with the DoP, to editing, even VFX. That would be where I’d fall back on him, and not think too much after.”
On his part, DK believes, “Part of being a film director, and I say this as a writer-director, involves art, yes. But it involves structuring, planning and analyzing everything else as well. It’s not a pure art-form as, say, composing a song, or painting, perhaps — those are pure art forms, which need only that burst of creativity. Of course as a filmmaker, you need that burst of creativity too. But creativity alone will make you look like a madman going around — with a bunch of ideas in your head, that are not structured right. You need to bring them into a format that makes sense as a story — one scene flows to the next, and a character graph that follows. There is also so much organisation involved. It’s everything around that makes [the art] happen.”
As for Raj’s role in the separate right- and left-brains seamlessly complementing, DK says of his partner, “I am trying to find the right word. I think the word is ‘disrupt’. Right when you think it is all good, Raj is — no, this is not good, and that is not good. Let’s redo all that! He is looking at all these small things — this guy doesn’t look like a millionaire, not old/young enough, he’s not saying it right, not wearing the right clothes…”
Raj obviously has a complaint. He doesn’t think DK is making him sound right — after he’s heaped his partner with all the compliments! But of course, DK is referring to perfectionism I guess — a cliché Aamir Khan has lived with all his life for similar reasons.
But Raj agrees, “People [from the set] will call and say, ‘I think, sir, you better come to the location’. And DK will say, ‘You better! I have said okay to it, but don’t complain later’. Invariably I have gone to a place that was done/locked, and said, ‘I like this, and this doesn’t work.’ People are like, ‘F*****, I knew it!’”
Although Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar never formally directed films, as Bollywood’s most successful screenwriting pair, the same was said of their individual strengths too. While one (that is Javed) looked into the minutiae of scenes, the dialogues, and the unsaid; the other (that is Salim) was more into getting the wider expanse, and the larger picture right.
It helps that Raj & DK write films together first, and by the time they’re on set, “most issues have already been hashed over.” The approach to filmmaking that is common between both though, and this, they attribute to their educational training, is “reverse engineering”. Which is really how they learnt to make movies. As Quentin Tarantino says when asked if he ever went to a film school, “No, I went to the films!”
Up until Goa Goa Gone, Raj & DK say they’d never been on a film set — as opposed to shooting on location. Let alone assisted anyone, or trained under a master. DK feels, “The engineering background came in handy in structuring and analysing whatever good creative ideas we could get. And then we reverse-engineered how somebody else made a movie.”
Raj explains further, “We had to teach ourselves. You are so familiar with the films you watch. That is the only familiarity you have — to, say, [Martin] Scorsese or [Steven] Spielberg, or whoever you are watching that you can connect with. Now the question is, can you make it as good, or even close enough? The idea was to figure out how a scene was made, and why is it looking so good?”
Scorsese or Spielberg are obviously the more obvious examples to emulate, or learn from. But if you glean through Raj & DK’s top 40 favourite films of all time, as they listed in a blog recently, there’s essentially a wide smattering of late ’90s indies, chiefly American, but also otherwise.
Invariably a list of popular cults within it too — Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Boogie Nights, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, etc. There is hardly an Indian film — okay, I spot Varma’s Siva (1989, in Telugu). Oh, no Bollywood movie at all? There is Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal (1979)!
DK admits, “Honest truth be told, Gol Maal also, I watched first in Tamil; the Rajinikanth version. Then someone said, oh you loved the Tamil version? You should watch the Hindi movie now. And which was really good. That’s why it made it to the list. Otherwise the Tamil version would have!
Raj: “Correction here. There was [only] one Hindi film, yes, but quite a few regional films. That is what we were watching.” DK: “We used to watch Khuda Gawah [1992] — just one big marquee film used to come where we were anyway. That’s all we would get to see. And our [knowledge of] Hindi is not exactly ‘Mahabharat Hindi’, so you pick anything you understand!”
This might sound like a handicap. But it’s proven to be an advantage for Raj & DK in Bollywood. The voice that’s developed seems wholly non-derivative to popular Hindi cinema from the past. The western indie influences are strong alright, again not in a sense of a rehash — as writers, they tend to look within to mine stories still. In each of their spheres, whether in corporate jobs, or two young men in Mumbai out to make Hindi movies, they’ve operated like the observant outsider — piling on experiences into entertaining fiction.
DK says, “Even if you see our earlier films, until a few years ago, I could draw parallels to each character and say where those traits were picked from — from real life, mostly.”
We go over a few instances. Starting with Bombay films itself: The scene, for example, in Happy Ending, where Govinda’s character (who plays a Bollywood star) is offered two DVDs for a script — Meet The Parents, first half; Meet The Fockers, second half.
This happened to them: “It might be slightly exaggerated, but the idea came [from the fact] that these tapes were given to us [by a producer] to direct. The exact same movies. And when we said, not our genre, he immediately came up with two more DVDs — Analyze This, first half; Analyze That, second half!”
Even the names of characters in Stree (Jana, Vicky, Narendra etc) are picked from their friends growing up in Tirupati, including the “bizarre” refrain/idea of “making friendship with a girl,” which had become buzzwords around them. “She is available for friendship. What does that even mean? How far does this friendship go?” Raj laughs.
The young girl Dhriti (Shrikant’s daughter) in The Family Man is inspired by Raj & DK’s friend’s daughter, although she has disowned the character since the second season. The boy Atharva is partly based on Raj’s nephew.
Likewise, the pesky boss lording over Shrikant Tiwari in The Family Man 2 is an amalgamation of all the crappy, techie bosses they’ve worked with, and wished to publicly drill a hole in their heads. What about: “Don’t be the minimum guy”? I’ve come across a few websites explaining the ‘minimum guy’ matrix/concept as a legit HR principle! It’s something that Raj & DK simply came up with.
Raj says, “We were just looking at different quotable quotes on walls. All of which we had seen before — don’t be this, or that, or rise up, stuff like that. We just wanted to coin a word, in a kind of incorrect English slogan, inspired by Trump.”
It’s a sort of continuation too, DK recalls, “There was another phrase in Go Goa Gone, where the characters say, ‘What do we know? What have we learnt?’ They keep saying this. It’s a slogan from the telemarketing company they work at. We also wanted to do a little ode to Steve Jobs, so we put his picture up there, with that Steve Jobs quote that we made up.”
I’m actually quite curious about how Go Goa Gone got made at all for wide theatrical release, with Saif Ali Khan in the lead — a movie ahead of its time, since there hadn’t been an A-grade zombie Hindi film thus far, in order to do a send-up of the genre itself! It’s like the comic spoof appeared before the real thing. That green-lighting seems easy peasy enough. Kunal Kemmu had already been cast in the film. He took Raj & DK to meet Saif, who first wondered, will people in India watch a zombie film?
DK says, “We told him only half the story. At that interval point, he was literally rolling on the floor, laughing. Especially when he heard his gangster character with the name Boris, who is Indian, pretending to be Russian, to blend in, because he’s in Goa. That we’d spike and colour his hair blonde, he’ll have tattoos, and a shot gun. Halfway he said, ‘Yeh toh ch****apa hai, aur mujhe yeh karna hai [got to do this dumbf***ery!]”
The film remained within its original zone, despite the mainstream/Bollywood frills attached to it. Just as their second film in Mumbai — Shor In The City (2011); a manic take/tribute to the city itself, that brought them critical notices, and probably first placed them on the Bandra-Andheri map.
They had already planned the film as a low-budget indie, with multiple newcomers, and funds sourced from friends — a big chunk kept aside for having the Indian-American star Sendhil Ramamurthy on board, who was already charging significantly less than his market fee.
Ekta Kapoor was looking for scripts for her label ALTBalaji. Raj & DK gave her the idea they could work on, while casually mentioning the movie they were going ahead with anyway. She came on board Shor In The City. The film was a smooth sail, although DK says it took them five years to cast for their first film in Mumbai, 99 (2009), which also had Vinod Khanna in a key cameo.
There are two ways to decode the unlikely Bollywood success of Raj & DK in a city that’s traditionally been wary of attempting too many untested concepts in the mainstream. For one, they simply don’t sit on scripts. I cite to them the example of a friend who once met the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa told him, you’ve got to be like a magician pulling out scripts like playing cards from various pockets — from under the shoe, behind the collar — depending on whatever might interest the producer.
That’s really how it works for us, DK says. They’ve been constantly writing, all these years. Raj remembers, “We were talking to a few filmmakers the other day, and they were struggling to make another film. We went back and counted scripts/ideas like poker chips, and realised, we have 20-plus scripts, and 70 ideas at various stages of development. The energy goes there!”
Also the mental distance from Bollywood allows them to approach their work without preconceived notions, for better or worse. Of all their achievements, Raj & DK may go down as rare filmmakers to pull off a shoot with Govinda, without delays, and no heartache whatsoever! “Oh no, he was amazing — only so happy to back before the camera.”
DK admits, “When I see Rajinikanth or Chiranjeevi in the South or Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan, that aura stays no matter what you say. But if you are going to work with somebody, you get into the nuts and bolts of it. We were meeting Kamal Haasan last week, and we kept thinking after the long meeting, if we should take a selfie, but we couldn’t!”
Raj extends the same worldview, “I don’t think we are fan boys, that way. Even people used to ask us, who is your favourite actor, director? Well, I like this film, and this is what I learnt from that film. But there are of course a few people, actors, musicians, we are in awe of. I have basically made a list of seven people I would not shy away from asking for a picture with.”
Subsequent interviewers must ask Raj who those seven are. I realise it’d be an intrusion on their time. You can barely profile Raj & DK looking back, since there’s just so much they’re working on simultaneously. DK lists, “Our series with Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi is in production. We wrapped up work on a cool period, satirical comedy series, set in 5th Century, called Golconda. We have another series on the floor. We have Citadel, produced by Russo Brothers, that we aim to start shoot in a few months. Then there is The Family Man 3. There are a couple of films to start as well, since they took a backseat because of the pandemic…”
Speaking of the Russo Brothers, the most commercially successful director duo in the world — in fact, all other director teams we know are siblings; whether in Mumbai, Abbas-Mustan (Burmawalla), or abroad, the Coens, Wachowskis… Not Ashwiny Iyer and Nitesh Tiwari, but they are spouses. A natural creative chemistry that is hard to match. Very non-DDLJ Raj & DK, 48, only three months apart (Raj is elder), in that sense, are exceptions.
This conversation over Zoom is taking place from their respective homes, which is to say that while they seem like brothers from other mothers, indeed sharing their left and right brains, they do live separately.
Raj has to leave the chat early, since his guests are over for his father’s birthday party. DK wishes, “Say happy birthday to your dad.” Raj replies, “Okay, cool. Please say happy birthday to your mom too [same day].” Okay then.
We are very cognizant of the sentiments of the Tamil people and Tamil culture, say The Family Man makers, Raj-DK
7:56 AM
Makers reiterate their love and respect for all; promise well-balanced portrayal of all parties concerned
BOMBAY TIMES (May 24, 2021)
Amazon Prime Video dropped the trailer of the much-awaited new season of its original series, The Family Man, on Wednesday. After the release of the first season in 2019, fans have been eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series. Going by the response to the trailer, the creators seem to have brought their A-game to the table and are all set to wow viewers. The creator-duo of the show — Raj and DK (Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK) — spoke to us about what this multi-lingual new season has in store. Excerpts:
What can you tell us about the show, which is much awaited by viewers across 240 countries?
Raj & DK: With the trailer trending on number one on YouTube for over two days straight, it was evident that fans from all over the world have poured their love for the new season. The trailer has already garnered a whopping 37 million views. We have created this series with all our heart. Years of work, especially through the pandemic, has been poured into creating this nine-part espionage drama series, which we are excited to share with our viewers. This season continues to build on the beloved Srikant Tiwari’s internal conflict of being a middle-class father and husband, while being a world-class spy, who is working for a fictional agency. The challenges that Srikant faces now are more complex and he steps up his game. The new season truly represents the linguistic and cultural diversity of India. It is genuinely a pan-India show. It also marks Samantha Akkineni’s digital debut, who will be essaying a brave character.
What makes this season special?
Raj & DK: The new season of the series brings the North and the South together. Building on the roster of an amazing cast from earlier, the new season features some popular faces from Tamil Nadu’s theatre circuit, too. With the use of intense action sequences and songs, the season portrays divergent views and complex characters very sensitively. This new season has the plot set in Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, London and France, with a defining story arc. We have worked with several subject-matter experts to build the finer nuances of the story. This brings to life our relentless pursuit of inclusivity and endeavours to showcase India’s richness through our stories. The show has been it strengthened by the commitment of the cast and crew — veteran actor Manoj Bajpayee immersed himself into preparing for the character, Samantha took dialect refining classes, learnt martial arts and performed every stunt herself.
Was the new season more challenging than your other projects?
Raj & DK: We are humbled by the love and appreciation that we received for season one. Fortunately, we completed the script for the new season, started shooting it even before we released season one. That saved us from the pressure of getting overwhelmed by audience expectations. However, we did listen intently to audience feedback, too, and fine-tuned the show to address the interests of viewers, while staying true to the nature of the show, characters and storyline. We have attempted to enhance the viewing experience for the audiences by making the scale bigger and stakes higher and have upped the ante on the action.
Amidst all this excitement, a certain section had reacted to the trailer saying that the portrayal of Samantha’s character, Raji, could hurt their sentiments. What do you have to say?
Raj & DK: Some assumptions and impressions have been made based on just a couple of shots in the trailer. Many of our lead cast members, as well as key members of the creative and writing team, are Tamilians. We are very cognizant of the sentiments of the Tamil people and Tamil culture and have nothing, but the utmost love and respect towards our Tamil people. We have put in years of hard work into this show, and we have taken great pains to bring to our audiences a sensitive, balanced, and riveting story — much like we did in the first season of the show. We request everyone to wait and watch the show when it releases. We know you’ll appreciate it once you watch it.
We got clarity that we should stick to what we believe in and that is paying off now-Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
8:00 AM
Says Raj Nidimoru, of the writer-producer-director duo Raj and Krishna DK. They talk about their association and why they “focus on standing out and not just making money”
Kavita Awaasthi (HINDUSTAN TIMES; November 19, 2019)
After completing 10 years in the business, the writer-producer-director duo, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK are glad to have stepped into the digital platform. The duo enjoy working on never-done-before concepts and love adding quirk to each project, including Shor In The City (SITC; 2011), the quirky Go Goa Gone (2013) and their recent hit Stree (2018). Excerpts.
What kind of reactions have you got for the web series The Family Man (TFM)?
Raj: It has been overwhelming and amazing to see what a web show can do. Some people dissuaded us saying we are filmmakers but I am glad we took the plunge. There were so many layers from satire, friendship, terror plot, current affairs, family life, which is what we were excited about. Given that season one was so successful, there is a lot of expectation and excitement about the next season.
DK: Making a web show is a humongous task but it also allows us to explore a subject more deeply than what you can in a film.
What were your expectations while working on the show?
DK: For us, coming from the feature film background, we didn’t know what to expect. There are no box office figures, so we only got a sense of what people thought once we got the reviews and reactions on social media. And what’s lovely about web series is that every week we have new audiences watching it. The life cycle lasts longer.
How do you look back at your decade-long association?
Raj: We were two friends trying to make a film, not knowing how to make one. We taught ourselves everything from writing, producing and directing. We wanted to make movies that are unique and not run-of-the-mill. We didn’t focus on making money but standing apart. We didn’t want to get into the ‘business of films’ but focus on creation. It took four years for our first film to be made. It has been a long journey since then. Today, I feel we are in a happy space and making what we want to, be it Stree or TFM. Few years ago, we got clarity that we should stick to what we believe in and that is paying off now.
DK: Our initial films like SITC got good reviews but didn’t work at the box office. But after SITC came Go Goa Gone and people wondered, ‘who are these whacky guys?’ The last couple of years have been good in terms of the work that we have done. Also turning producers has enabled us to put out a lot more stories and have control over our own creations.
Horror films are graduating out of their B grade status-Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
8:19 AM
Filmmakers Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK decode the changing scenario of content-driven horror films in India
Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; March 6, 2019)
As writers, they probably wouldn’t have achieved what they did by turning producers for Stree. The film rebooted the horror genre. Now, as they gear up for Stree 2 and the sequel to Go Goa Gone, writers and directors, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, who wrote the story for Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s much-loved movie, speak to BT about introducing freshness to the horror genre and what they plan to do with their upcoming films. Excerpts:
Stree’s success laid the foundation where you and your colleagues can experiment with new content and it also showed the audience that horror films can be different. What are your thoughts?
KRISHNA DK: You know, what is really reassuring here and what gives us confidence, is that we stuck to our kind of absurd and offbeat-meets-mainstream story and it was accepted. It’s the first one of its kind that we could attempt after Go Goa Gone. By becoming producers on the film, we could ensure that it gets made the way we had envisioned. We knew people would like it, but we didn’t expect it to go the way it did. It made people aware that horror can also have shades. It’s the resurgence of the genre, and we’re not the first ones to state it here. We’re gearing up for Stree 2 and Go Goa Gone. There are many more films that are now being made in the horror space. The only worry is that those films, including two of ours, should now add newer dimensions to the storytelling. Otherwise, the space will become repetitive again.
How do you redefine a genre that is most associated with cheap thrills and more often than not, is explored by B-grade films?
RAJ NIDIMORU: Horror is evolving as a content space, the films are graduating out of their B-grade status, particularly in the international market. There, the horror films made in the last five years alone have been far superior to the ones made prior to that. When the genre was new, of course, there was a lot of originality in thought. Over a period of time, things became repetitive, particularly back home. It’s either gore or sex that usually gets sold under the horror label, but now, maybe it will have more meaning, stronger stories and a change in approach by the filmmakers.
Some of the most acclaimed horror films in the past, like Mahal (1949) and Bees Saal Baad (1962), set the stage for great horror writing in Hindi cinema. However, would you say that filmmakers like the Ramsay Brothers in the ’80s and the Bhatts towards the ’90s diluted it with titillating content?
RAJ: I don’t blame anyone, but I think the greatest horror films have always been atmospheric. They have created an atmosphere and transported you into a different world. I agree Hindi cinema had some brilliant horror films at the outset. Then, people discovered the jump-scares — a character walking into a passage or a room and boom... A cat jumps out of nowhere! It’s startling, but, after a point, it’s also quite funny. That’s where it all became repetitive, because I’m not sure if people could think beyond this or didn’t want to think beyond this. Clearly, it had worked for them for some time, but it wasn’t going to work forever.
KRISHNA: That’s primarily why horror films gradually came to be seen as B-grade films with songs and sex. It was a mishmash. India is unique and has distinct tastes from the rest of the world, but somehow people have always stuck to doing what has previously worked. Thankfully, Raj and I thought more as a discerning audience and went with what excited us. We didn’t want to make a film like ‘XYZ’ because it works and brings in the money. We’re not fans of horror cinema, but we wanted to do it as a fusion and give the genre our own spin.
Having seen unprecedented success with Stree, do you now feel a pressure to live up to higher expectations with the sequels for both Stree and Go Goa Gone?
KRISHNA: It’s a big challenge, because as filmmakers and writers, we have never stuck to one genre. Stree was open-ended and so everyone knew that a sequel is in the offing. But now, we know we have to crack it really fast, because we didn’t start off on Stree thinking it would have sequels. Actually, most of our films have had open endings. Goa Goa Gone is another challenge for us because it comes after a gap of six-seven years and the original has stood the test of time. The pressure is high in both situations, because we have to first match the original in terms of content and then the box office, too.
RAJ: The reason everyone loved Go Goa Gone was that no one knew what to expect from it. With a sequel, the challenge is that people are familiar with the world and you have to find something to keep them hooked.
Do you have plans to reinvent the characters or change them around completely?
KRISHNA: We won’t do anything deliberately. We’re still writing Stree 2. With both the films, we don’t intend to change anything unless the story organically demands it.
RAJ: It has been long since Go Goa Gone released. Our actors have matured since then, so we obviously can’t be in a time warp with the film’s story. The characters they play will also change accordingly
When you make a horror film, do you strategise with a plan for censorship? You struggled with the CBFC for Go Goa Gone’s release without too many cuts…
RAJ: There’s no filmmaker who appreciates censorship. Everyone welcomes certification, because it’s an indicator for what the film offers and who it is intended for. But, no filmmaker wants to be told what needs to be cut from the film. When we’re writing, we don’t think of ‘cuts’ in the first draft at least. It was a fight for us to get Go Goa Gone out in theatres the way it was, despite an ‘A’ certificate. Stree was more innocent and didn’t have gore or sex, so it was passed with U/A and less struggle.
KRISHNA: Certification is important for any civil society, but so is the freedom to make a film the way a story demands. We stayed true to the genre with Go Goa Gone and presented it with every element that was required.
The 1980s, in a way, belonged to the Ramsay brand of horror films. With the kind of censorship we have, do you think any of their films would have passed muster?
KRISHNA: I am sure even in that era there was certification, but maybe they were more liberal then. Films were passed with ‘A’ certification and not a single cut.
While the success of Stree must be a memorable experience, you also faced adverse reaction with A Gentleman. How have you dealt with such contrasting outcomes to your films?
KRISHNA: It’s simple. Whenever we have stuck to a thought that excited us and we executed it the way we wanted to, it has worked. In the past, films have been changed around to suit the requirements of a studio or its packaging needs. Not everyone can see the story the way you do. When things are changed without a reason, they don’t work. Now, that we’ve also become producers, we know we can execute a story as we envision it and also rope in only those actors who fit the bill.
RAJ: These are lessons for us. We’ve always had quirky stories, including A Gentleman. It was packaged in a manner that didn’t gel with the audience. Now, as producers, it’s empowering that we have more control over our creative products.
The gender reversion was the most exciting part of writing Stree-Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
8:22 AM
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; August 24, 2018)
Having previously tackled a horror comedy offering, Go Goa Gone (2013), filmmaker duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK have yet again attempted the genre by penning the script of the forthcoming film, Stree. However, the tale behind Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s venture finds its roots in stories that the duo heard when in college.
But while the back story served as motivation to pen this film, DK adds that the decision to showcase women as the more powerful sex was an interesting angle to explore. “The general premise of the film can be condensed to the tag-line: Mard ko dard hoga. The idea is to show that men are not safe [when travelling alone] at night. If they step out, they should have a woman for company. They should wear appropriate clothes, else this ghost will take their attire away. The gender reversion was the most exciting part of writing this story. We wanted to make the film relatable and relevant.”
Though this project was one they wanted to helm, the duo realised it may be a while before they decide to direct a film. “We write a lot, so many good scripts kept piling up. We decided that we would not let this script just sit [on our desk]. As long as we were involved with the project, we were comfortable with someone else directing it.”
Most Indians are filmmakers at heart. Everyone has a story to tell-Raj Nidimoru & Krishna DK
7:59 AM
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; August 21, 2017)
You are bound to love your
job if your co-worker happens to be your friend. Raj Nidimoru and
Krishna DK aka Raj & DK, are the lucky few who have that privilege.
The engineers-turned-directors from Andhra Pradesh, quit their stable job
in the US to pursue their lifelong dream of making a film someday. A
decade later, the duo, popular for making Shor In The City and Go Goa
Gone, have already earned the reputation of making genre-bending cinema.
In a free-flowing conversation, the filmmakers share with BT, thoughts
on their forthcoming film A Gentleman - Sundar, Susheel, Risky row over a
kissing scene in it and who among the two wins, in case of an argument.
Excerpts...
Why did you opt for Raj & DK as your screen names?
Raj: Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK as names were too long for the screen.
DK: My real name is Krishna but everyone calls me DK so I went ahead with that. Raj & DK was easy I suppose.
Does it bother you if people interchange your names or mistake one for the other?
Raj: People should know that a film has been made by Raj & DK. It's okay if they don't know who exactly is Raj and who is DK. We face that all the time.
From engineers to filmmakers, how did the shift happen?
Raj: Actually, most Indians are filmmakers at heart. Everyone has a story to tell or a point to make about a film. We knew each other for a very long time. We went to college together and even worked together in the US.
DK: We were always crazy about movies like most South Indians are. Today, everyone gives instant reviews about a film. What's wrong and what's right. (Laughs)
Is that annoying for you as filmmakers?
DK: Attention spans are reducing. Even during a marketing discussion, putting out a three-minute song is considered to be long. One prefers a two-minute song. There's always a time crunch.
The kind of films that interest both of you are not regular Bollywood stories...
Raj: Something unique, slightly offbeat but still entertaining like a mainstream film gets us going.
DK: Even this film (A Gentleman...) has been marketed as an action film, which it is, but I think there's also a lot of quirkiness to it. It's not a typical action film.
A Gentleman... wasn't the original title of the film, was it? Also, what's with the Sundar Susheel Risky bit in the title?
DK: The working title was Reload, but that was never meant to be. We always wanted 'A Nice Guy' or something that describes Sid's character.
Raj: We took a boring NRI life that we use to lead - nine to five job, same sh**, different day. Then you upgrade your life - take bigger loans, buy bigger homes, want a wife and kids...the typical life. So we thought, 'Why don't we get some Mumbai crooks, gangsters with guns into this boring NRI life?' That's how the film shaped up.
So the story was drawn from your personal experiences?
DK: Boring NRI life, yes. Guys with guns, no. (Smiles)
How difficult is it to work as a team, given the difference of opinion that's bound to occur in any collaborative work?
DK: We are doing this for a long time now. It's been nine years since we made our first Hindi film here. The journey started much earlier. Obviously it's difficult for two individual filmmakers to come together and make a film, but we are two individuals who grew into it together so we are the same entity. 95 per cent of the time we are pretty much on the same page.
What happens in case of an argument?
Raj: The guy with a stronger viewpoint convinces the other guy otherwise there is no going forward. If there's no logic, there's no convincing.
What makes you click as a team?
Raj: We have similar tastes in films, sensibilities and similar backgrounds. There's no friction that way. It's not that he wants to make completely different set of films. If that was the case, it would be chaotic. Between us, there's a switching of roles that happens. DK tends to be a little more technical, as he looks after the editing and shooting. When he dons that hat, it gives me freedom to bounce off ideas without having to worry about them being great or shi***. That gives us balance.
Was the Sid-Jacqueline kissing scene in the film edited as per CBFC's suggestion?
Raj: It wasn't shortened but a couple of shots were modified or slightly rigged. It is a UA film and there's a passionate kissing sequence between them. Kissing can be done in various ways, so this scene begins in a sweet, sensual way but then it gets steamy and aggressive. And we knew somewhere that some shots may be a little too much for a UA film.
DK: We had to tone the kiss down rather than cutting it out. We replaced a few shots with some milder ones.
Were you surprised with this decision?
Raj: Even in the US, you follow certain guidelines for PG-13 movies, it's similar here. But the rating system should be more precise.
DK: We saw it coming. But six-year-old girls dance to item numbers here. They don't even know the meaning of it. I don't want to sound sanskaari, but what we need is certification instead of censorship and in this case, the CBFC didn't ask us to cut the scene. The changes that came to us were fitting into the mode of the certification system. If you want a UA certificate then reduce the kissing scene versus cutting it out.
Does Jacqueline have action scenes of her own? Very often in our action films actresses end up as glamourous props...
Raj: We don't follow stereotypes anyway. We don't want the girl in our film to be a ditsy, clueless person. Everybody should have a mind of their own. If we are creating a nice character for a guy, why not for everyone else? She breaks free in the film and gets into action later.
In your film Happy Ending Govinda played a Bollywood star, who tells the writers what to do. Did you experience such characters as filmmakers?
Raj: Yes, initially we did. Most of his dialogues were our real-life experiences. Somebody actually put two (Hollywood) DVDs in front of us and said, 'Issme se ek picture banao.' We used that part in the movie.
Why did you opt for Raj & DK as your screen names?
Raj: Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK as names were too long for the screen.
DK: My real name is Krishna but everyone calls me DK so I went ahead with that. Raj & DK was easy I suppose.
Does it bother you if people interchange your names or mistake one for the other?
Raj: People should know that a film has been made by Raj & DK. It's okay if they don't know who exactly is Raj and who is DK. We face that all the time.
From engineers to filmmakers, how did the shift happen?
Raj: Actually, most Indians are filmmakers at heart. Everyone has a story to tell or a point to make about a film. We knew each other for a very long time. We went to college together and even worked together in the US.
DK: We were always crazy about movies like most South Indians are. Today, everyone gives instant reviews about a film. What's wrong and what's right. (Laughs)
Is that annoying for you as filmmakers?
DK: Attention spans are reducing. Even during a marketing discussion, putting out a three-minute song is considered to be long. One prefers a two-minute song. There's always a time crunch.
The kind of films that interest both of you are not regular Bollywood stories...
Raj: Something unique, slightly offbeat but still entertaining like a mainstream film gets us going.
DK: Even this film (A Gentleman...) has been marketed as an action film, which it is, but I think there's also a lot of quirkiness to it. It's not a typical action film.
A Gentleman... wasn't the original title of the film, was it? Also, what's with the Sundar Susheel Risky bit in the title?
DK: The working title was Reload, but that was never meant to be. We always wanted 'A Nice Guy' or something that describes Sid's character.
Raj: We took a boring NRI life that we use to lead - nine to five job, same sh**, different day. Then you upgrade your life - take bigger loans, buy bigger homes, want a wife and kids...the typical life. So we thought, 'Why don't we get some Mumbai crooks, gangsters with guns into this boring NRI life?' That's how the film shaped up.
So the story was drawn from your personal experiences?
DK: Boring NRI life, yes. Guys with guns, no. (Smiles)
How difficult is it to work as a team, given the difference of opinion that's bound to occur in any collaborative work?
DK: We are doing this for a long time now. It's been nine years since we made our first Hindi film here. The journey started much earlier. Obviously it's difficult for two individual filmmakers to come together and make a film, but we are two individuals who grew into it together so we are the same entity. 95 per cent of the time we are pretty much on the same page.
What happens in case of an argument?
Raj: The guy with a stronger viewpoint convinces the other guy otherwise there is no going forward. If there's no logic, there's no convincing.
What makes you click as a team?
Raj: We have similar tastes in films, sensibilities and similar backgrounds. There's no friction that way. It's not that he wants to make completely different set of films. If that was the case, it would be chaotic. Between us, there's a switching of roles that happens. DK tends to be a little more technical, as he looks after the editing and shooting. When he dons that hat, it gives me freedom to bounce off ideas without having to worry about them being great or shi***. That gives us balance.
Was the Sid-Jacqueline kissing scene in the film edited as per CBFC's suggestion?
Raj: It wasn't shortened but a couple of shots were modified or slightly rigged. It is a UA film and there's a passionate kissing sequence between them. Kissing can be done in various ways, so this scene begins in a sweet, sensual way but then it gets steamy and aggressive. And we knew somewhere that some shots may be a little too much for a UA film.
DK: We had to tone the kiss down rather than cutting it out. We replaced a few shots with some milder ones.
Were you surprised with this decision?
Raj: Even in the US, you follow certain guidelines for PG-13 movies, it's similar here. But the rating system should be more precise.
DK: We saw it coming. But six-year-old girls dance to item numbers here. They don't even know the meaning of it. I don't want to sound sanskaari, but what we need is certification instead of censorship and in this case, the CBFC didn't ask us to cut the scene. The changes that came to us were fitting into the mode of the certification system. If you want a UA certificate then reduce the kissing scene versus cutting it out.
Does Jacqueline have action scenes of her own? Very often in our action films actresses end up as glamourous props...
Raj: We don't follow stereotypes anyway. We don't want the girl in our film to be a ditsy, clueless person. Everybody should have a mind of their own. If we are creating a nice character for a guy, why not for everyone else? She breaks free in the film and gets into action later.
In your film Happy Ending Govinda played a Bollywood star, who tells the writers what to do. Did you experience such characters as filmmakers?
Raj: Yes, initially we did. Most of his dialogues were our real-life experiences. Somebody actually put two (Hollywood) DVDs in front of us and said, 'Issme se ek picture banao.' We used that part in the movie.
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