Ranbir explains his four-year hiatus at ‘Shamshera’ promotions

New Delhi: The Capital’s cinema buffs got to see both Sanjay Dutt and the man who played him on the big screen, Ranbir Kapoor, on Monday evening when the cast of Karan Malhotra’s ‘Shamshera’ came on a promotional tour to the city.

Explaining his absence from the big screen since the Sanjay Dutt biopic ‘Sanju’ was released in 2018, Ranbir Kapoor said: “After ‘Sanju’, I was working on ‘Shamshera’ and ‘Brahmastra’. These two big-budget movies took time and then my dad was unwell and a pandemic happened.”

Ranbir Kapoor and his co-star Vaani Kapoor also talked about shooting in mud and how tough it was to get rid of it.

And Malhotra mentioned shooting the movie in Ladakh: “There were about 200 to 300 people who were shooting at the outdoor location and about 60 horses that we brought in from outside as you don’t get large horses in Ladakh. You only get mules.”

Ranbir Kapoor added that he had not done a movie on this scale and in this genre, so it needed a lot of conviction.

Vaani then talked about the most challenging part and said: “Certain emotional scenes were quite tough, but I remember more of the fun part.”

Ranbir Kapoor also recalled his father and late actor Rishi Kapoor’s reaction when he signed the movie.

He said: “My father worked with Karan in ‘Agneepath’ and that film brought a lot of fame to my father. He was very happy with the impact of the film. When I signed this film, he was very happy. He always used to complain that my film choices were very poor and so he was very excited when I signed ‘Shamshera’.”

Dutt added, sounding somewhat tutored: “Every project is a learning experience for me and I learned a lot while working in ‘Shamshera’.”

Ranbir Kapoor said, more spontaneously, that the action part was very challenging and the climax, which the unit shot in the last 15 days, was very tough.

Vaani concluded the evening, saying that the song ‘Kaale Naina’ was just to tease the audience to watch the movie. The actors also put up a special performance for the fans at a mall in south-west Delhi.

Produced by Aditya Chopra under the Yash Raj Films banner and directed by Karan Malhotra, the film features Ranbir Kapoor in a double role with Sanjay Dutt as the antagonist alongside Vaani Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Saurabh Shukla and Ashutosh Rana. It will be released in theatres on July 22.