Kunal Kapoor, Ramayana’s Indra, says Ranbir Kapoor has the ‘stillness, grace’ to play Rama

When a glimpse of Airavat, the divine flying elephant, was offered in the first trailer of Ramayana, Nitesh Tiwari’s adaptation of the Indian epic, earlier this year, the audience began speculating who’d play Indra, the rain god who’d be perched atop his mighty vahana, in a battle against the chief antagonist Ravana, played by Yash in the mythological epic. The international trailer of the film, unveiled last month, revealed it to be Kunal Kapoor, who recently spoke on SCREEN Spotlight about his experience of working on the film.

“All of us have looked at movies in the West and said, ‘Wow, that’s incredible!’ But secretly, we’ve hoped and said, ‘Why can’t we make a film like that?’,” said Kunal. He discovered that was the exact film co-producer Namit Malhotra of Prime Focus and director Nitesh Tiwari are aiming for with Ramayana. “They’ve put so much time, passion, and effort, and so many resources into it for over six to seven years now. So, there was no question of not wanting to be a part of it,” he argued.

Calling the experience of shooting his sequences “wonderful”, Kunal confessed he’s never been on a set like that in his 25-year career so far. “It was incredibly quiet, almost meditative. Everybody knew they were telling a story that was important to our culture and our history. It was the first set I was on where everybody knew exactly what was going on,” he pointed out, claiming that not only the director, actors, and assistant directors, but also the spotboys and the lighting staff were in full sync with what was happening in every scene, thus developing a “magical” subconscious connection with everybody on set.

He attributed it greatly to the temperament of Nitesh Tiwari. He admitted that in the hands of a lesser director, mounting such an epic would’ve been far more chaotic. “Nitesh sir is a great guy to work with. He’s so easy. Anybody else who was making a film of this magnitude would be stressed. You’d see that on the set. But with him, he’s absolutely relaxed and great fun to work with,” said Kunal. His conversations with the filmmaker about playing Indra also helped him shape the character with all his nuance intact.

“The most interesting characters are those who are powerful on the outside, but have some kind of fragility inside. Indra is a personification of that. Lord Indra commands rains, thunder, and armies, but from everything you’ve read about it, there’s some vulnerability inside. I find that very fascinating — not just the power, but what that power is trying to protect inside. Even though he’s a god, that makes him deeply human and relatable,” explained Kunal.

Since his role demanded a lot of hugely mounted action sequences, he shot extensively with the green screen, for the first time in his career so far. “The thing with the green screen is there’s nothing available to you. There’s no real palace or sunrise. Everything is out of your imagination. You’ve to create pretty much everything in your head. But that can be a lot of fun as well. Because it takes you back to the most important thing as an actor — your imagination. It also takes you back to your childhood, where you’d play with imagination. That was a lot of fun,” he recalled.

He also hailed the technical insight provided by action director Terry Notary, best known for serving as a movement coach on Hollywood’s blockbuster action epics like the Planet of the Apes franchise, X2 (2003, from the X-Men franchise), Superman Returns (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Avatar (2009), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), The Hobbit franchise, and Russo Brothers’ upcoming Marvel movie Avengers: Doomsday.

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“We got very lucky because we had somebody like Terry. He trained all the actors in the Planet of the Apes to imbibe that body language. What I found really fascinating about working with him was he was not just an action director, but a body language expert directing action. That’s very different from working with an action director. Just having that kind of a talent on the film makes it incredibly easy for everybody else. Because you’re shooting not only an action sequence, but also an important part of a story that’s close to all our hearts. So, when you find talent that looks at it and approaches it like that, it really elevates the work,” reasoned Kunal.

On working with Yash, and the casting of Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi

Out of the lead actors of Ramayana, Yash only had scenes to share with the KGF star Yash, who plays the chief antagonist Ravana in the film.  “Yash is a great guy. He’s very, very grounded and easy. He’s obviously a huge star across the country, but you don’t get that feeling when you work with him. He was amazing to work with as well,” said Kunal.

While he didn’t have any scenes with Ranbir Kapoor and Sai Pallavi, he vouched that they’d make for a befitting Rama and Sita respectively, especially having worked with them in the past. “Ranbir is obviously a fantastic actor. He’s that rare actor who has the ability to say a lot while doing very little. That’s the stillness you need to play Shri Rama. It’s not an over-the-top character. You’ve to had a restraint and grace to you, but within that, you need to be able to convey a lot. And you need a brilliant actor to do that. So, I think Ranbir is going to be amazing as Rama,” argued Kunal. He shared screen space with Ranbir almost two decades ago in Siddharth Anand’s 2007 romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno.

He was paired with Sai Pallavi more recently, in Sunil Pandey’s romantic comedy Ek Din earlier this year, which was also her Bollywood debut. “I remember when we were doing a scene together, I looked at what she was doing while I was in the scene. I was just so fascinated because she had the ability to take something very simply written, but elevate it. She’s obviously going to be fantastic in the film. She’s such a good actor,” added Kunal.

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Co-produced by Prime Focus and Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, Ramayana is adapted for the screen by Tiwari and Shridhar Raghavan. Also starring Sunny Deol as Hanuman, Ravi Dubey as Lakshman, Rakul Preet Singh as Shurpanakha, and Arun Govil as Dasharatha, it’s slated to release in cinemas worldwide this Thursday on November 5, three days ahead of Diwali.