Actor Varun Dhawan had strong words for the Censor Board's much-reviled list of banned words, the first cinematic casualty of which is the actor's new film Badlapur, releasing tomorrow.
In an exclusive interview, Varun told NDTV that declaring abusive language off-limits for filmmakers only serves in making the forbidden glamorous and exciting. "What I find very funny about this whole thing is that with the amount of rapes that are happening in our country, there are people who say that you excite people by showing these things in your films. I mean you hide something so much that that excites people. They think it's a taboo and it's very cool to do all this. You need to be more open minded about certain things and then people will not make such a big deal out of it," the actor said.
His director Sriram Raghavan was hopeful that the Censor Board's diktat would eventually 'go away.' "I find this list very strange. I think it will eventually go away, I hope so because in India, a film without them doesn't make sense," said Mr Raghavan, who had to delete three cuss words from his film. (Also Read: Censor Board's List of Banned Words Stupid, Says Badlapur Director)
So were scripts and good cinema being compromised for box office?
The actor said that scripts and the quality of cinema were being compromised for the box office, which is unforgiving to any film that fetches less than Rs 100 crores, regardless of content. "150 per cent it is and it's not only about today. This has always been the case," Varun said while also agreeing that in his father's era, films had repeat-value while the current crop of films have a shelf-life of a week. (Also Read: Badlapur Makes it Past Censors With Abuses Deleted From Dialogue)
"I wouldn't say that that time was different, I think people were different, their struggles were different. I hear my father's struggles, they were incredible. I think for our generation, with internet and technology things have become more graspable and easier to feel. So somewhere down the line, the fire which used to burn for so long has not been burning that much. But a film like Badlapur, working with a director like that is exciting for this very reason. That's why films like Badlapur must do well at the box office," he added. (Also Read: In Badlapur, Nawazuddin and I Are a Match Made in Hell, Says Varun)
Varun, hitherto star of three teenybopper romances, had another valid reason for doing Badlapur. He said, "I saw a very good side of life and played great characters and I really enjoyed bringing lot of happiness to people, but that's not life. If there's happiness, there's sadness. If there's life, there's death and I felt like exploring this other emotion and getting into this world which I find very cool because I enjoy thrillers - I loved Inception, I loved Gone Girl, Kahaani and I always wanted to do something like that."
Badlapur, a revenge tale, stars Varun as a man in search of his wife's killer. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Huma Qureshi co-star.
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