Aug 3: Ranbir Kapoor andYash, who play Lord Rama and Ravana respectively in the highly anticipated two-part epicRamayana, spoke toIMDb recently at the San Diego Comic-Con. The duo spoke about the responsibility of portraying two of Indian mythology’s most iconic characters, the emotional and physical demands of the shoot, and the human moments hiding within the film’s massive scale.
Talking about the moment the scale of the project truly hit him,Ranbir Kapoor reflected on the cultural weight the story carries.
“Every Indian is born with the faith of Ramayana, so we understand the responsibility, the value. What it means to billions of people across the world, across generations for 4,000 years,” he said, adding that the cast and crew came in with “a lot of commitment, a lot of truth, a lot of belief, a lot of faith.”
Summarising Ravana for the international audience discovering him for the first time,Yash said,
“He’s the OG villain. The story’s stood for 5,000 years. I’m sure when you watch this movie and when you watch this character, you can see that a lot of characters must have been derived out of this character,” he said, adding, “So I would like to call him an OG villain.”
Asked about the smallest, most human moment that stayed with him despite the film’s grandeur,Kapoor pointed to the emotional core running through the story. “Ramayana teaches you to deal with complex relationships, it teaches you about courage, about righteousness, about the triumph of a human spirit in terms of adversities,” he said, noting that Rama is revered as Maryada Purushottam – “the perfect son, the perfect husband, the perfect brother, the perfect father, teacher, disciple”, he adds “for just an actor to kind of portray that on screen is a terrifying prospect. But I think the moral responsibility that we all carried, you know, to kind of do justice to this was tremendous.”
On what makes Ravana so compelling as an antagonist,Yash added,
“The greatest villains are the ones who have a point of view… Ravana, in his own way, always thought he’s right. He had a cause, he had a purpose. But there’s a very thin line… arrogance and confidence, it’s a very thin line.”
Kapoor also revealed the one day of the shoot he’d choose to take audiences behind the scenes – the emotional exile scene at Kop Bhavan, where Lord Rama is asked to leave for 14 years. “I think that’s a very emotional chapter for a lot of Indians, that kind of sacrifice Lord Rama has to do. And I think when we were shooting that scene, everybody on the set was deeply moved. So I think that was very memorable,” he shared.