Exclusive! Director Ranjit M Tewari on BellBottom, Lara Dutta's transformation, and more

Director Ranjit M Tewari’s BellBottom starring Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Vaani Kapoor, and Huma Qureshi is all set to hit the big screens on 19^th August 2021. It is the first Bollywood film to release in theatres post the second wave of Covid-19 in India.

We recently interacted with Tewari and spoke to him about the movie, Lara Dutta’s transformation, and a lot more…

When we asked him if he is nervous or excited about the release of BellBottom, the filmmaker said, “Very excited and nervous too, I won’t lie. But, it’s good nervous energy. There are certain things (Covid-19) that are not in our control. What is my control is to make a good film for the audience which we have tried and done our best.”

When asked if there's box office pressure, Tewari said, “Of course there is pressure but what can you do. You can’t control these things (pandemic). But I hope that people come and watch the film. At a lot of places cases (Covid-19) have gone down quite a bit, people have got vaccinated now, and so, they can come, watch the film with their families, that’s what we are hoping.”

Talking about how difficult it was to make a film during the pandemic, he told us, “It was very difficult. Prepping virtually was difficult, we could not meet each other, casting, costumes, everything happened virtually. It was difficult but the energy was great, and everyone wanted to do the film.”

From the day trailer of BellBottom has been released, everyone is talking about Lara Dutta’s look as the late former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi.

When asked Tewari if he expected such a great response to the actress’ transformation, he said, “I expected it (the response) and I think most of us who saw her while working we expected. We knew that when her look will be revealed to the audience what will happen because when we saw her in that look we were shocked as well. When she was on the set in her costume and make-up, not for a moment I thought it was Lara. We felt that it was someone else.”