Box-Office Buzz A Romeo with star quality
A FEW years ago I had the opportunity of meeting Ranveer Singh at the International Indian Film Academy celebrations in Canada.
It soon became clear that this rising star, fresh from his debut in Band Baaja Baaraat, was ready for big things in Bollywood.
And how right I was. Although 2011’s Ladies vs Ricky Bahl was a failure, his charming and seductive acting was not.
Singh bounced back earlier this year with a critically acclaimed performance — described as subtle yet magnificent — in the romance Lootera .
In a telephonic interview with the dashing actor ahead of his new release, Ram-Leela, Singh once again impressed me with this confidence and suavity — despite the fact that he was recovering from a serious bout of dengue fever. “Ram-Leela is grand. It’s romantic, it’s dramatic and violent, it’s colourful and a hard-core masala classic with comedy, song and dance — everything that fans of cinema will love,” said Singh.
The actor is rumoured to be dating his co-star, Deepika Padukone, who plays the role of Leela, but he was evasive when asked about the relationship.
He did say, however, that he admired and respected her, and that she remained grounded despite her amazing success.
He said of director Sanjay Leela Bhansali: “I have always been an admirer of his work. I actually got a call from Bhansali that he wanted to meet me, so I quickly rescheduled all my other meetings . . . I was immediately offered the lead role in this epic romance and within 20 minutes I agreed 100% to be part of the project.
“Working with a director of his calibre was an amazing experience. Yes, he is a taskmaster — he is difficult and demanding — but he does his work with passion. Truly, he is the best I have worked with thus far. He breaks the shackles. He will throw challenges at you, but most of all he will give you wings to fly.”
Singh said that his character in the film, Ram, “is quite close to Ranveer in real life. And I just love my moustache and I love the magic of my character. To play Ram, I did a lot of hard work, including long hours working out, learning Gujarati and growing this moustache.”
He said the back-to-back filming of Lootera and Ram-Leela had been demanding. In Lootera he had played a reserved, subtle character, but Ram had been an explosive character in the modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The film opened worldwide on Friday.