Showing posts with label Raja Krishna Menon interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raja Krishna Menon interview. Show all posts
With Chef, it's the return of the Saif Ali Khan we have loved in the past-Raja Krishna Menon
8:10 AM
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 4, 2017)
Raja Krishna Menon was
shooting the Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur-star rer Airlift in Jodhpur
when producer Vikram Malhotra approached him with the gastronomical
comedy Chef. Raja was self-admittedly excited as he loves travelling,
food, and has a son, the mainstays of the official Hindi remake of the
Jon Favreau Hollywood film. But he'd only worked with original scripts
before amd wondered how he would make it different, admitting Chef was a
much harder film to shoot. “It's far more emotional than Airlift and
was a cathartic experience as I was trying to understand a father-son
relationship,“ he says.
Raja is a hands-on parent to son Yannick but he hardly knew his own father. “I have had no relationship with my father. He walked away from us when I was less than a year old and I've only met him a few times. My mother brought me up. I grew up in a home full of women - my mother, sister and aunt. When you grow up without something, you don't know if you are missing it or not,“ he says.
And just how similar is this film to the original? “Only that the protagonist is a chef and there is a food truck. Saif's (Ali Khan) character explores his life more closely as he returns to India to be with his son, then retraces his steps to the journey that made him a chef. It's the return of the Saif we have loved in the past,“ he exclaims. “He's playing a character he is true to and is definitely very relatable to professional India.“
Raja spent a month-and-a-half with Saif before the film rolled as the actor prepped for a few hours, four to five times in a week, to get the body language of a chef right. “It was important as his character works in a top restaurant and it was a basic requirement for him to look like a chef and understand the kitchen. My assistants and I shot a couple of real life chefs as they went about their daily business and watched them closely.“
Saif also underwent cooking lessons. “He makes the best aglio olio pasta, a simple recipe with only garlic, chilli and olive oil. We also got to indulge in local delicacies while shooting in Kerala and New York,“ says the director, revealing that the first time they were trying to make something in a suburban hotel's kitchen, they ended up putting the lobster in the pasta without cooking it properly.
The food truck that features in the film prominently took two-and-half-months of prep as it had to be a functional kitchen as well as conducive for shooting. “It used to get extremely hot and people would stop on the roads to look at it,“ Raja recalls.
He refutes rumours that Saif's better half Kareena Kapoor has a guest spot though she did visit the sets and hung out for a few days. In their quest for authenticity, they commissioned South actress Padmapriya to play the leading lady, a Malayalee Bharatanatyam dancer. The hardest part was casting the child actor to play Saif's son, which, after three months, finally drew to a close with 11-year-old Svar Kamble. “I wanted someone more intelligent than precocious, someone relatable and with a sense of responsibility. We screen-tested nearly 200 students, narrowing it down to 50, and did workshops with them. The first time I saw Svar's screen test, I knew he was the right boy. He is incredibly talented and really expressive for his age,“ Raja marvels, recounting how a nervous Svar tried hard to impress his onscreen father. “Saif broke the ice really fast and by the second meeting they had become friendly.“
Raja is a hands-on parent to son Yannick but he hardly knew his own father. “I have had no relationship with my father. He walked away from us when I was less than a year old and I've only met him a few times. My mother brought me up. I grew up in a home full of women - my mother, sister and aunt. When you grow up without something, you don't know if you are missing it or not,“ he says.
And just how similar is this film to the original? “Only that the protagonist is a chef and there is a food truck. Saif's (Ali Khan) character explores his life more closely as he returns to India to be with his son, then retraces his steps to the journey that made him a chef. It's the return of the Saif we have loved in the past,“ he exclaims. “He's playing a character he is true to and is definitely very relatable to professional India.“
Raja spent a month-and-a-half with Saif before the film rolled as the actor prepped for a few hours, four to five times in a week, to get the body language of a chef right. “It was important as his character works in a top restaurant and it was a basic requirement for him to look like a chef and understand the kitchen. My assistants and I shot a couple of real life chefs as they went about their daily business and watched them closely.“
Saif also underwent cooking lessons. “He makes the best aglio olio pasta, a simple recipe with only garlic, chilli and olive oil. We also got to indulge in local delicacies while shooting in Kerala and New York,“ says the director, revealing that the first time they were trying to make something in a suburban hotel's kitchen, they ended up putting the lobster in the pasta without cooking it properly.
The food truck that features in the film prominently took two-and-half-months of prep as it had to be a functional kitchen as well as conducive for shooting. “It used to get extremely hot and people would stop on the roads to look at it,“ Raja recalls.
He refutes rumours that Saif's better half Kareena Kapoor has a guest spot though she did visit the sets and hung out for a few days. In their quest for authenticity, they commissioned South actress Padmapriya to play the leading lady, a Malayalee Bharatanatyam dancer. The hardest part was casting the child actor to play Saif's son, which, after three months, finally drew to a close with 11-year-old Svar Kamble. “I wanted someone more intelligent than precocious, someone relatable and with a sense of responsibility. We screen-tested nearly 200 students, narrowing it down to 50, and did workshops with them. The first time I saw Svar's screen test, I knew he was the right boy. He is incredibly talented and really expressive for his age,“ Raja marvels, recounting how a nervous Svar tried hard to impress his onscreen father. “Saif broke the ice really fast and by the second meeting they had become friendly.“
It wasn't difficult to convince Akshay Kumar for Airlift-Raja Krishna Menon
7:40 AM
Raja Krishna Menon couldn't believe it when told by his producers that Akki wanted to hear his story about an air evacuation
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 24, 2015)
Raja Krishna Menon had harboured dreams of making Airlift, the Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur-starrer based on the 1990 Gulf War, for over ten years and took two years to complete the script. Even though he has directed two indie films, Bas Yun Hi (2003) and Barah Aana (2009), Airlift is widely mistaken to be his debut.
"I believe that's happened because it's my first mainstream project, because Akshay Kumar is in it and it is backed by big production houses. I am not a 'serial filmmaker' in the sense that this is my third film in 12 years," Raja reflects, adding that he belongs to the generation of filmmakers who wanted to tell stories differently.
The film is based on the true story of the airlift of 1,70,000 Indians during the invasion of Kuwait. "I really believe that pulling off an evacuation of that magnitude is a heroic mission and it's terrible that many people don't know much about it. Also, the beauty of the whole operation is the sole intent behind it — to get these people back.
With this film, I wanted to showcase that faith exists," he said. "I wasn't there when the producers met Akshay. The ball started rolling from there. But it wasn't difficult to convince Akshay to come on board," Raja reveals, adding that he initially refused to believe the fact that Akki wanted to hear his script. "I was walking my dog when it happened. I thought it was joke. When we narrated the story to him, all he said was, 'let's meet again tomorrow,'" the director reminisces.
"You will see an emotional side to Akshay in the film and witness the brilliant actor that he is," says Raja, adding that a lot of hard work has gone into making the film. "I had got time with Akshay for a month where every morning for three hours, from 5 am, we would do the readings, discuss every nuance of who will this guy be like, how will he deal with a particular scene, etc," he says, informing that along with his crew they researched for six months before going on the sets. "If you walk into my room, it's full of images and videos we spent months collecting. In fact, my entire office looked like a war zone in that sense," he says, adding that there isn't any particular pressure on him as a filmmaker.
Did he and Akshay ever have a clash of ideas? "There were no clashes at all, but there were many discussions on how to approach certain things. Sometimes he came up with pieces of brilliance, which could be little things like the way a certain line is to be said. With Akshay it's been collaborative, there have been times when he disagreed with what I was doing, and I have said let's try it both ways and see the best that comes out of it. So it's been smooth working with him. I don't know the stars, nor do I know the industry so I didn't come with any baggage. However, I knew that it would be hard to handle egos but Akshay doesn't have one," says Raja, who is yet to figure out his next project.
"After Airlift I am going to take a couple of weeks off. I have written so many things, and will now go back and see what I want to do next. But it will be an honest story," he signs off.
---------------
Shaheen Parkar (MID-DAY; December 24, 2015)
Though Raja Krishna Menon helmed the Purab Kohli and Nandita Das-starrer Bas Yun Hi (2003) and 2009 film Barah Aana starring Naseeruddin Shah and Vijay Raaz, the writer-director often finds himself being asked if he is new to the industry. For the past several years, Menon, who has an advertising background, had been piecing together the story of Airlift, inspired from the real-life drama surrounding the evacuation of Indian expatriates from Kuwait in 1990 when the country was invaded by Iraq. It is regarded as the biggest human evacuation in history, and the director can’t wait for his film, which stars Akshay Kumar in the lead, to reach the audience. hitlist caught him for a brief chat. Excerpts:
You have been around for over a decade, but made only three films...
Because what works for me may not work for others. But now, I feel the market is more receptive to people like me. When Barah Aana released, it was just after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. It was a small film, which travelled to film festivals and got a decent release. Aamir Khan helped a lot behind the scenes, so the film had its journey. For me, a film is a film; I do not know the difference between mainstream and not mainstream. For Airlift, I first narrated the story to co-producer Nikhil Advani through a common friend.
Has being an ad filmmaker earlier helped you now in any way?
When you do ads with stars, the interaction is limited. Stars are under contracts with the companies. I am not sure being an ad film director is a positive thing, at least for me.
What prompted you to tell the story of the human evacuation drama in Kuwait?
I had family members there who were affected. They would keep telling their stories. Then I would meet their friends who would relate their saga. They would show me their family albums and videos; that was the time Kuwait was the wealthiest country in the region. It was only around 2005 that I realised this was a story to be told. My wife’s aunt was an airhostess with Air India back then, so she has given a lot of first-hand information. The film is about knowing what it means to be an Indian, something that the present generation does not know. We are always complaining about things, but what are we doing? We can be the change, but only if we have a positive approach.
How was it working with Akshay Kumar?
He would call me to his house at 5 am for narrations. By 11 am, we would finish off everything and I had a lot of time — the entire day — to concentrate on making the film. Even while shooting in Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah in the UAE, morning was always better for him.
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