Anupam Kher gave his voice to Jatayu in the recently released Ramayana: Rise of a Legend and also served as the narrator for the epic, and the actor is ecstatic with the response, especially for the climax fight sequence between Jatayu and Ravana. "Obviously, the fight is spectacular because of its VFX, and it has also brought attention to the Jatayu temple in Keralam. I open Instagram, and it's filled with Jatayu Reels. Jatayu was very old when he had this fight. Thus, it was a fight of an underdog," he says.
The 71-year-old raves about the international level quality of the film saying, "People are thinking of films like Lord of The Rings when they are watching Ramayana." Kher was recently at the Swedish premiere of Ramayana and he insists he was moved by the response the audience gave the film there. "An 18-year-old Swedish boy, who came with his mother and sister, was mesmerised by the film's visuals and the script. He was amused that such a selfless man existed. He told me he wants to read Ramayana now. The film has also given Indians abroad a sense of pride."
Before the release, Ramayana was subjected to a lot of criticism and skepticism, but Anupam Kher believes people need to look at the film from a different perspective. “There are criticisers and then there are doers. Everyone will have an interpretation of the film, but it should be applauded for what it attempted. Today, anyone can criticise anything but you need to see the film in a certain pretext. In the last 100 years, we have seen good cinema but nothing like this. This is the best way to educate the younger generation about our history,” he asserts.
Kher is all praise for the quality of work that actors Ranbir Kapoor and Yash brought to the fore as Ram and Ravana respectively. "It is very brave of Ranbir to do a role which doesn't have much dramatics. Ranbir is a very popular actor with a great sense of acting, and to do such a restrained role, only an actor like him could have done it. Someone else might have felt kahin to thoda heroism dikha dun. On the other hand, Yash has maintained a certain kind of power in his performance and (actor) Sharad Kelkar in his Hindi dub complemented him so well. Yash is a very massy actor and he could have been tempted to go over the top, but it speaks a lot about Nitesh Tiwari as a director,” he says, adding that the entire cast deserves an applause including Sai Pallavi, Ravie Dubey and Arun Govil.
{{/usCountry}}Kher is all praise for the quality of work that actors Ranbir Kapoor and Yash brought to the fore as Ram and Ravana respectively. "It is very brave of Ranbir to do a role which doesn't have much dramatics. Ranbir is a very popular actor with a great sense of acting, and to do such a restrained role, only an actor like him could have done it. Someone else might have felt kahin to thoda heroism dikha dun. On the other hand, Yash has maintained a certain kind of power in his performance and (actor) Sharad Kelkar in his Hindi dub complemented him so well. Yash is a very massy actor and he could have been tempted to go over the top, but it speaks a lot about Nitesh Tiwari as a director,” he says, adding that the entire cast deserves an applause including Sai Pallavi, Ravie Dubey and Arun Govil.
{{/usCountry}}Recently, it was announced that Ramayana has been submitted for Oscars 2027, and Kher remains hopeful. “As an Academy member, I will certainly root for it,” he ends.