Shahid Kapoor's Vivah to Amrita Rao

The Bollywood actors speak to Diganta Guha about their forthcoming Rajshri film, Vivah.

Sooraj Barjatya returns to the big screen after more than three years (his last film was Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon), and with a new Prem. It’s Shahid Kapur in his forthcoming Vivah.

Salman Khan was Sooraj’s favourite Prem having starred in three of Rajshri’s films as Prem (Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Hum Saath Saath Hain). Meanwhile, his Sooraj’s experiment with Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan in MPKDH was a damp squib.

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So, is Shahid the new Prem? “Yes, he is,” answers Shahid’s co-star in Vivah, Amrita Rao where she plays his fiancée Poonam. And what about Shahid? “I don’t think there can be any better Prem than Salman. He is irreplaceable,” he answers. And if you were to give him an option to play any of the past Prems, “It has to be the one in Maine Pyar Kiya though I am biased towards the one in Vivah.”

Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao in a still from Vivah.

Vivah is Shahid-Amrita’s fourth film together (

Ishq Vishq, Shikhar

and

Vaah! Life Ho To Aisi

), so expectations are naturally building up. On this, both are cool. “We didn’t plan anything nor were we promoted by any banner. It is something the audience has created,” adds Amrita who plays a small-town girl engaged to a Delhi guy in the film. Shahid says

Vivah

portrays them differently.

“If your first film works people tend to like you. Amrita hasn’t got her due yet and I hope she benefits out of

Vivah

since she has a tailor-made role,” he says on Amrita.

The film may not have the glitz and glamour of most of Rajshri’s previous, but has a story one can connect to because, it is the first love story that talks about arranged marriage and in India still a large section of the population goes for arranged marriage, feels Shahid who adds.

“It makes a strong statement on what it takes to live up to the commitment of marriage.” He knows the comparisons he would have to face with Salman, but Shahid says he understood what the director required him to play — a guy on the shy side and not as boyish or exuberant in his previous films.

Rajshri’s films also remind us of the Indian family and Amrita does feel it plays an important part in Vivah too, though the focus is more on the courtship period about “how your life changes when somebody becomes so special.” 

Amrita on the other hand considers Poonam as a role of a lifetime because this was the first time she felt inspired by a role. “I have always had high regards for directors like Soorajji, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and others who have given women very strong characters in their films and I hope I have done justice to the role of Poonam. Soorajji has scripted it with a lot of purity.” And she would love to play Nutan’s role in Rajshri’s Saudagar because “of its uniqueness.”

Both the actors are all praise for their director — Shahid considers Sooraj as somebody who does all the homework and hence it becomes easy for everybody to work with him. And we remind Shahid of the pranks he played on the sets and he says it was necessary to keep the unit going during the course of a 45-day long schedule at Nainital. 

Up next for Amrita is E Niwas’ film and for Shahid, a break. He is reading scripts and waiting for the release of Farhan Akhtar’s Don The Chase Begins Again where his girl friend Kareena Kapor has danced to the tunes of Yeh mera dil. “I am a big fan of Shah Rukh Khan and of course there’s Kareena, so I have pretty good reasons to see it first,” he quips.