Kiran Rao Shares Insights on ‘What Women Want’ with Kareena Kapoor

Kiran Rao Talks Film Industry Journey and Relationship with Aamir Khan”

In the latest episode of “What Women Want” hosted by Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kiran Rao shared insights into her personal and professional life.

During the interview, Kiran discussed her journey in the film industry, her experiences working on her latest project “Laapataa Ladies,” and her thoughts on creativity and collaboration.

She also opened up about her relationship with her ex-husband, Aamir Khan, highlighting both the positive aspects and the challenges of their partnership.

Here are the details of the interview

Kareena Kapoor: Your success is attributed to Aamir Khan. Oh yeah, it’s a definite low.

Kiran Rao: Yeah.

Kareena Kapoor: I just feel so proud. That film “La Pata Ladies” is going to the Oscars, and here we have Kiran Rao representing us.

Kareena Kapoor: You and Aamir obviously are co parenting Azad. How does that work?

Kiran Rao: It’s tricky in that he’s a very, very busy father. Honestly, even when we were married, I was doing a lot of the actual primary parenting.

Kareena Kapoor: What do you have to say about this whole me too thing?

Kiran Rao: We look for help, we find. If we look for solidarity and support, we find it. The story itself was a really lovely, realistic story of two girls getting lost.

Kiran Rao: The swap itself is both like full Hindi cinema and Shakespeare.

Kareena Kapoor: You have to be lost to find yourself truly. Meri aaj ki guest ki kahani kuch e si hi hai. She’s quite often Lapata, but she’s found herself.

Kareena Kapoor: And ladies and gentlemen, she has found herself in India’s official entry to the Oscar nominations in the best international feature film category. An ace director, producer and a dear friend. Please welcome Hamari Knotts.

Kareena Kapoor: So La pata Kiran Rao. Yay. Hey Kiran.

Kareena Kapoor: Welcome to the show. What women want. No better guess too than you.

Kareena Kapoor: To have you on this couch and chat about what women want.

Kiran Rao: Thank you. So nice to be here.

Kareena Kapoor: I know. First, I have to know what everyone’s reaction is now.

Kiran Rao: When I learned this, I was in complete disbelief. Honestly, in the beginning, I was like, “Not possible.”

Kiran Rao: What nonsense. I was genuinely, obviously in my heart of hearts, really hoping and you know every filmmaker wants to be India’s entry to the Oscars, right? But when it actually happened, it took me a minute for it to actually feel like the real truth.

Kiran Rao: And then when I, when I finally kind of acted it, we were elated.

Kareena Kapoor: So I think the story, I mean there was, it was a multistarrer. There were, you know, so many different characters in the film, but everyone. So how did you get into it?

Kareena Kapoor: How did you write the story? What was the first germ that came and how did it happen? Lapata Ladies.

Kiran Rao: So it actually began with a script that a guy called Biplab Goswami wrote called Two Brides. And actually the story itself was a really lovely, realistic story of two girls getting lost. One very sheltered one who has dreams.

Kiran Rao: But I felt the genre needed to be much funnier. Had to have humor, satire to make it.

Kareena Kapoor: That.

Kiran Rao: Yeah, it’s kind of entertaining also. Yeah, it actually the swap itself is both like, you know, full Hindi cinema and Shakespeare, you know, like mistaken identities, you know, swap kind of thing. So I felt ripe with potential to make into a comedy.

Kiran Rao: And so we brought.

Kareena Kapoor: It’s emotional as well.

Kiran Rao: Yeah, so we did have to work on that. The original story was a little bit more like sort of realistic art house cinema. And so we brought on this wonderful writer called Sneha Desai.

Kiran Rao: She’s an absolute cracker of a writer. She came on and transformed it, and we developed these characters. Jaya was very different in the original.

Kiran Rao: There was no Manjumai in the original.

Kareena Kapoor: Also, one thing about the script is that I just feel like, you know, it had a very different kind of individuality, each character.

Kiran Rao: Yeah, absolutely. You know, what I felt was that like one is it allowed us to explore women’s lives in very different ways.

Kareena Kapoor: You sat with the actors as well.

Kiran Rao: Sat with the actor, sat with the writers. Because when I read the original, you had this pool character. But her arc was not as well defined where she very subtly finds her, you know, some sort of like an identity for herself within this marriage that she’s happy to be in.

Kiran Rao: And Jaya was completely different in the original. And we wanted this character of a person who’s ambitious, who’s bright and dreams are dashed. She finds this opportunity and decides that, you know, why should I lose this opportunity?

Kiran Rao: So those characters, though, of course, we had to develop, but there’s so many others. And so one of the main characters that I was keen to bring in was a character like Manjumai who, you know, you feel like you want one woman in this film who can prove that women can do things on their own, can live by their own rules, can look after themselves, be economically independent, you know. Yeah.

Kareena Kapoor: And also I just feel so proud that I mean, most people feel like, you know, Indian cinema has all, you know, the big super duper stars and their films are going to, you know, be blockbusters and, you know, go on to make it to a global platform. And here we have our Kiran Rao representing us and a woman. I don’t think I can feel prouder or is better.

Kiran Rao: I feel immensely proud and immensely honored, actually. Kareena, because, you know, we are a country of so many films, so one to be chosen amongst 29 films that were in contention and also to represent women in general. We really, I feel, you know, our time came a long time ago, and I’m really happy to be there and sort of fly our flag in many ways.

Kiran Rao: It’s really very exciting.