#Aditya Roy Kapur# Sara Ali Khan# Metro In Dino# Anurag Basu
IBNS-CMEDIA: Bollywood actors Aditya Roy Kapur and Sara Ali Khan visited the Eden Gardens, dined at cricket great Sourav Ganguly’s residence and spoke to the reporters on their upcoming Hindi film Metro… In Dino during a two-day tour to Kolkata. IBNS correspondent Souvik Ghosh speaks to both the actors on Anurag Basu’s latest that reminds the audience of his 2007 flick Life in a… Metro. Excerpts…
Q (to Sara): Tell us about the romance in metros shown in the film.
Sara: We have tried to show and encapsulate the warmth of all the metros and how love languages are changing nowadays in metros and how modern love has evolved.
Aditya: I think what’s wonderful about the four love stories is that Basu-da has used situations of big cities that I think everyone can connect with. I think everyone will connect with one story or the other.
Poster of Metro… In Dino. Photo: Aditya Roy Kapur/Instagram
Q (to Sara): How was your working experience with Aditya?
A. It was amazing and a lot of fun. He is so real and relaxed that I had a great time working with him.
Q (to Aditya): Tell us about your reunion with Anurag Basu?
A. The experience was again amazing. I earlier worked with him in Ludo. I had such a wonderful time working with him that I was looking for the next opportunity to get back on to a movie set with him. I was really excited when he reached out to me. He had a lot of interesting and exciting ideas about what we could do with the character. It’s a dream for an actor to work with him. A joy to work with always brings out something different in a performance. So I was really excited to be back on a movie set with Dada (Anurag Basu).
Q (to both): Did you feel any sort of burden of the spiritual prequel Life in a… Metro‘s success while filming Metro… In Dino?
Sara: I didn’t take any pressure, honestly. I was just honoured and privileged to get a chance to work with Basu-da, to be in a film with Pritam-da’s music. Metro… In Dino is a film of its own. It’s a different film so I didn’t take any pressure.
Metro… In Dino is much like the first one in a sense there are four different love stories across different ages and stages of life. As long as a viewer can relate to at least one of the four stories, that’s all we can do.
(From L to R) Sara Ali Khan and Aditya Roy Kapur at the press conference. Photo: Arpita Das
Aditya: An actor already has enough pressure for any film so there is no need to apply more pressure on oneself (laughs). We look for ways to release pressure actually. I don’t think there is any reason to take any baggage. We had no reason to think of that because the story (of Metro… In Dino) is new and unique and Dada came with a completely new slate. During the promotions, sometimes we are thinking of Life in a… Metro and how people are connecting the two films but during shooting, we just approached Metro… In Dino as a fresh piece of work.
Q (to Sara): Recently, your co-actor Fatima Sana Shaikh talked about an actor’s insecurities in an ensemble cast. What are your views on it?
A. I think Basu-da is a master filmmaker who has done films like this before, be it Life in a… Metro or Ludo. He knows how to give his characters and actors a lot of space and respect. We are storytellers and part of the story. As long as we keep that in mind, I personally don’t see the room for insecurity. 
Aditya Roy Kapur and Sara Ali Khan at Sourav Ganguly’s residence. Photo: PR Team
Q (to both): How is it working without any formal script in Anurag Basu’s style of filmmaking?
Aditya: The experience in Basu-da’s film is always going to be unique. He has his own unique way of working and it works for him. He definitely gives a detailed outline of the story and the essence of the characters. So one knows exactly the kind of role he/she is playing. But he doesn’t fully give his actors bound script before and that’s his method. After a few days, one gets used to his style of filmmaking and starts enjoying it.
Sara: On the first day of Basu-da’s set, I was like thrown into just the world that he creates. It’s very liberating once one gets used to his style of filmmaking. It was a lot of fun right on the inaugural day when me and Adi (Aditya) did a musical portion of the film.https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wm2R3aJPY2M?si=IIS8PFyRePqCm-U0
Q (to Aditya): How did you arrive at the thought of making your singing debut?
A. It was wonderful. It all happened in a very impromptu way. There’s a small musical part in the movie which is yet to come. It was unplanned. I got into the studio and they (makers) seemed to think that my voice was sounding good. I was supposed to sing, I think, one or two lines but ended up singing the whole song and that’s what ended up being in the film.
So I’m glad it happened in an impromptu manner. I didn’t overthink it. I just was in the moment and sang the song. I’m excited to see what people think. It’s a very quirky song, to say the least. I’m really happy to have done it and hopefully I’ll do a few more now that the ice has been broken.
(Photos: Arpita Das and PR Team)
