MUMBAI: Filmmaker Kiran Rao is currently basking in the glory of her latest release Laapataa ladies that released recently. The filmmaker however recalled the time she was an assistant director for her ex-husband Aamir Khan’s film Lagaan. The film was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and has a huge star cast that included Aamir Khan, Raghubir Yadav, Gacy Singh, among others including many international actors.
Lagaan was incidentally the last Indian film that was nominated for the Oscars in the formerly known as Best Foreign Language Feature. Kiran said she had to reach the sets by 4:00Am in the morning and her first job was to arrange for toast for the ‘gori mem’ Rachel Shelley. She said, “My job was to somehow get all the actors from makeup, hair, wardrobe to set. And in Lagaan, we had two cricket teams, plus everybody had beards, the women wore dresses. It was a nightmare. Before reaching set at 4-4:30 am, I’d be on my walkie telling them to put the toaster on. The actor who played Elizabeth wanted toast first thing in the morning.”
Kiran further said, “I would be sitting in the makeup room and wondering what I was doing with my Masters in Mass Communication from Jamia. But finally, everybody has to put in their hours in all these places. But you hope that one day you leave the makeup room and find a spot near the monitor. Unfortunately, I didn’t even get to see much of the shoot, I spent most of my time in the makeup room.”
Kiran also mentioned that they never expected the film to be such a success as it did. They were in fact worried about the length of the film thinking it would go up to 6 hours. Kiran concluded, “Aamir showed us one cut that was four hours long, without the cricket. Four hours! Without the cricket! We didn’t know how they’d cut it down. We thought that this would easily be a six-hour film.”
Kiran made her directorial debut with Dhobi Ghat in 2010.
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Credit-IndianExpress
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