EXCLUSIVE: “Don’t think Ram Gopal Varma even cared about Rann’s failure, he didn’t have time to think about it,” says Shirsha Guha Thakurta

Shirsha Guha Thakurta’s feature film debut Do Aur Do Pyaar was released on Friday. The film is a modern romantic comedy starring Vidya Balan, Pratik Gandhi, Ilena D’Cruz and Sendhil Ramamurthy. In the past, she has assisted Ram Gopal Varma in a few films.

In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, Shirsha was all praise for RGV. “He is a master craftsman,” she said. “The amount you can learn from him in one film is like five years of film school. What is truly wonderful about working with him is that he is very generous as a person with his knowledge and craft. He is not insecure. He talks about what he is thinking and what music he is thinking of. He is someone who breathes cinema. I can’t tell you how precious those years are for me because I have learnt so much.”

It was Varma’s approach that helped Shirsha in ad films later. “After working with him, I started making advertisement films because he made it look so simple. He makes it look like this is so easy. So, you start directing while believing it is so simple, but it is not. It’s really hard. He used to shoot two films at the same time. I don’t think he ever slept. He used to shoot something in the day, edit something in the night and in the middle, he used to work on pre-production (of another film).”

She added, “People may or may not like his films or whatever, but that’s a different question. But as a craftsman, you can’t learn from anyone better. He is a true institution. Anybody who has worked with him will tell you that.”

Shirsha was the first AD (assistant director) in RGV’s Rann (2010), which starred Amitabh Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Kiccha Sudeep, Mohnish Behl and Paresh Rawal. When this writer mentioned that the film was ahead of its time, Shirsha said, “He (Varma) was always ahead of his time. Because I worked so closely with him for those years, you can see how his mind works. It’s true genius.”

Shirsha, however, didn’t have time to look at the creative aspect of Rann while assisting RGV on it. “As a first AD, you are only concentrating on getting the dates. He (Varma) wouldn’t follow schedule. He was all over the place. As a first AD, you had to hold it together. That was my job. I didn’t get into anything creative. As a first AD, you have to make sure that the ship is afloat. He would constantly change dialogues,” she said.

Rann was critically acclaimed but the film didn’t do well at the box office. But, over the years, the film has gained acceptance after its telecast on television and OTT. This is largely because the subject of fake news it dealt with is more relevant today.

When Shirsha was asked how RGV felt about Rann’s box office outcome, she said, “I don’t think he even cared. It’s not something he would show. And he would be hooked onto his next film by the time the earlier film released. I don’t think he had the time to think about it.”

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: “It was a party to have Vidya Balan and Pratik Gandhi on set of Do Aur Do Pyaar,” says Shirsha Guha Thakurta