For more than 20 years, Vaibhavi Merchant has been a choreographer. However, when she has the chance to collaborate with Karan Johar, she has the opportunity to co-create the entire movie since the songs in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani are just as essential to the story as chiffon is to a Yash Chopra song or drama is to a Sanjay Leela Bhansali dance number.
Vaibhavi talks in-depth in an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times on the experience of working with Karan, Ranveer Singh, and Alia Bhatt, paying tribute to Yash Chopra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and remaking Dola Re Dola with two male actors.
As per the edited excerpts shared by HT, Vaibhavi as shared her shooting experience with Alia Bhatt and how she has prepped for the romantic melody with Ranveer Singh in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani.
She averred, “Alia had herself gone and visited Shah Rukh for a day to learn this, because she’d never done a song like this either, except a little bit of Ishq Wala Love in her first film. But then how to handle the pallu, handle the sari, see the hero gush at you, maintain your hair, fighting all the wind in a chiffon sari in sub-zero temperatures. We also use the fan to counter the wind and ensure the sari flows in a beautiful way. You’re even listening to the song at a faster speed, so to maintain the sanity of your expression, to emote and lip-sync in high speed… for me, that was a challenge. Because these aren’t veterans of this kind of songs. You’ve seen Shah Rukh and Kajol do it a hundred times because it was a norm in those days.”
“We expected the comparison, but we didn’t get bogged down by that. Pointing fingers to that wasn’t a eureka moment for us. When the song released, people were watching it as a standalone sequence. But now that the film is out, they’re all praise. We knew that we’d done the best of what we could do under the circumstances we were in. There was an actress who was nursing her baby between the takes. We know the stories behind every shot that’s been put out there.”
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