Neeraj Ghaywan on Made in Heaven Season 2: ‘My male gaze made me think whether men would see Tara as a gold digger’
Ahead of the release of Made in Heaven S2, here's an exclusive conversation with directors Reema Kagti, Alankrita Shrivastava, Nitya Mehra and Neeraj Ghaywan.
Made in Heaven, a show with relatively new or unfamiliar faces, was undoubtedly a directorial and writers room feat. Co-written by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Alankrita Shrivastava, co-directed by Prashant Nair, and with Nitya Mehra as the showrunner, the series with two wedding planners as the leads married narrative with craft.
(Also Read: Made In Heaven 2 trailer: Sobhita Dhulipala, Arjun Mathur fight for love and money as they plan grander weddings)
The four-year itch
Across the four years since the first season released, the makers have been bombarded with the timeline of Season 2. Now that it's on the eve of release, they're relieved more than anything. The four years, that involved a couple of pandemic-induced shutdowns, did deter their momentum, but they also made sure it allowed them to approach the new season with renewed vigour.
“I actually got to watch it. We were in the post-production for so long on Season 1 that I refused to watch it,” said Nitya Mehra, who was the showrunner on the first instalment. “The first time was so daunting. It was the first of its kind. But when it released, and we got such a great response from the viewers, I thought that I'd enjoy it the second time, something I didn't in the first season. Season 1, Episode 1, all of these have the curse of establishing the story and characters. But Season 2 has a kind of freedom, where people already know who their characters are. So we've managed to push it on every level in Season 2."
Alankrita agreed that the intermittency also helped them to scale up the second season. “We went back on set with the core feeling of what Made in Heaven Season 1 was, but wanting to do something more, dig deeper, find something more within that same space. The idea was to make it more fun and grander, and yet make it deeper, more poignant and more complex,” she added.
Pandemic effect
The COVID-19 lockdowns also exerted a deep impact on the logistics of weddings. They became smaller, close-knit family affairs in smaller spaces, owing to the social distancing restrictions. However, as soon as the lockdown opened, there was this whole trend of revenge wedding shenanigans, where the proceedings became even louder, grander, and more crowded.
But Reema is unsure whether any of that had influence on how they approached the writing of Season 2. “We were about to start filming when the first lockdown happened. So the writing was already locked. It had been written in the pre-pandemic world and it stayed that way,” she said.
Nitya directed a short film in Unpaused (2020), a Prime Video anthology with stories of how people got affected by the pandemic and lockdowns. But she insists that we may be away from the eye of the storm now, but there's still some time left before one can process something as life-altering as the pandemic. “It's very soon. You have to live a few years to understand what the pandemic did,” she said.
Writers Room Dynamics
It's interesting to trace the evolution of this show's writers room. It started with the successful screenwriting duo of Reema and Zoya, but now has five directors helming an episode or more each. But Reema says the progression was quite organic.
“With Season 1, it was Alankrita who came into the equation. We're friends. We have similar value systems and a similar kind of thinking. We just fit in. It just felt like an extension to what Zoya and me were doing,” said Reema, adding that the reason could also be because it was their first long-form gig. “It's almost like three feature films worth of writing. It does help to have more heads. It does make for something more rounded than what it does when you're writing alone. It'd be torture to write about nine hours of content alone. I know people do it, no disrespect to them. But I'd rather have co-writers and collaborators.”
Reema is also glad to have also served as a co-director on Season 2. “I barely managed to nudge half an episode away from Zoya. The intention on Season 1 was also for me to direct. But Gold (2022 film with Akshay Kumar) got greenlit at the same time. So I had to pull myself out and start doing some hockey training,” Reema added.
The newest addition to the directors brigade on Season 2 is Neeraj Ghaywan. He stepped in for Prashant Nair, who got busy with directing Trial By Fire, a series that released on Netflix India earlier this year. Ghaywan is no stranger to making second instalments of prestige dramas his own, as he also stepped in for Vikramaditya Motwane in Netflix India's Sacred Games Season 2 in 2019.
He admits that it was easy to blend into the all-women directors team of Made in Heaven because they share a worldview, value system and politics. “It becomes difficult otherwise. I'll give you an example. When we were making Masaan (2015), there's a point where a character said a derogatory term. He said “maal” while looking at the Facebook page of someone. Instinctively, Varun (Grover, writer) and me ran to him and said, ‘Don’t use that word. Use some other word.' You may have a great script, but if it doesn't augur well with my own worldview or politics, the sync doesn't happen."
Neeraj said that he only learnt from the women directors he was working with on Made in Heaven Season 2. “It was my male gaze that wasn't allowing me to see Tara (Sobhita Dhulipala's character) the right way. I was thinking whether men would think of her as a gold-digger. But she's actually taking what's rightfully hers. She's trying to get her financial autonomy, which is right.”
Brainstorming is a given when five directors of their calibre sit down to making a show. But one is curious to know how they decide who's directing which episode. For instance, Alankrita edged past others by helming three episodes in Season 1, including the finale. “It's very organic. It's pretty free-flowing. Some episodes are thematically suited better to one director vis-à-vis the others. But we've never been in a situation where I am like I want this episode, and Zoya is like no," Alankrita added.
Neeraj clarified that they even filled in for each other, whenever required. “Alankrita and I swapped one of our episodes. Even Zoya and Nitya swapped. We would direct for each other too. When I got COVID, Zoya shot for me and vice-versa. That's the sync I'm talking about.”
Made in Heaven Season 2 drops this Thursday on August 10 on Prime Video.
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