‘On this happy occasion, I wish Sonam more work and another National Award.’
Photograph: Kind courtesy Sonam Kapoor/Instagram
A decade ago, on April 19, 2015, Sonam Kapoor embarked on a journey with Neerja.
The biographical drama, which released the following year on February 16, relives purser Neerja Banot’s last flight aboard Pan Am 73 when, on September 5, 1986, four terrorists of the Libyan-based terrorist group Abu Nidal, attempt to hijack the ill-fated plane enroute to New York during a stopover at Karachi’s Jinnah international airport.
Neerja died two days before her birthday, managing to save 359 of the 379 passengers on board, including the three children she took bullets for.
She was honoured posthumously with the Ashok Chakra while Neerja was adjudged ‘Best Feature Film in Hindi’ at the 64th National Film Awards with Sonam’s performance in the title role getting her a ‘Special Mention’.
On Sonam’s 40th birthday on June 9, the film’s director Ram Madhvani tells Rediff Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya, “Today, Sonam turns 40,which I say is 20 multiplied by two because she still has the energy of a 20 year old.”
‘It’s rare for an actor to get to play a role that is perfectly suited to them’
IMAGE: Sonam Kapoor in Neerja.
It was Atul (Kasbekar, Producer), who spoke to Sonam first and approached her for Neerja even before we were ready with the script.
I was happy when he told me that she had evinced interest in the project because even then, I was convinced she had the right look and demeanour to play Neerja and it’s rare for an actor to get to play a role that is perfectly suited to them.
I met her for the first time when she came with us to Chandigarh to meet the Bhanot family.
We took the blessings of her mother (Rama Bhanot), her brothers (Akhil and Aneesh Bhanot) and the others who were there.
It was nice to see how homely Sonam was and how comfortably she fit into Neerja’s family.
My first impression of her was that she is somebody for whom the family will always come first and this has to do with her own family and upbringing, the value system she believes in.
After this, it took us a year-and-a-half with Saiwyn Quadras who wrote the story and screenplay, and Sanyukhta Chawla Shaikh who penned the dialogue, to finalise the script.
We would constantly read out the script to Sonam as it developed and I was delighted when she eventually said yes and came on board.
‘I was so moved by the way Sonam spontaneously started crying’
IMAGE: Jim Sarbh and Sonam Kapoor in Neerja.
She has a great world view, knows her European cinema and reads a lot. Consequently, she could embrace the way I shoot my movies.
I use three-four cameras at a time and don’t use lights.
In this film, I also insisted on keeping the four actors who play the hijackers — Ali Baldiwala as Mansoor, Vikrant Singta as Fahad, Abrar Zahoor as Zayd and Jim Sarbh as Khalil — from meeting the crew and the passengers till the day of the shoot.
They lived in different hotels and even rehearsed separately, meeting the passengers and the crew for the first time on the flight.
In fact, the four terrorists had not even seen the inside of the plane till then.
This is not your usual way of filming, but I wanted to escalate the antagonism between them.
For me as a director to capture that energy, my lead actress had to be comfortable, confident and sure, completely embrace what I call my ‘System 360’, which Sonam did, easily and beautifully.
There is a scene in the film where in the midst of the hijack, when the danger to the passengers and the crew is escalating, Neerja opens an envelope given to her by her boyfriend Jaideep, played by Shekhar Ravjiani.
As she reads the letter in which he opens his heart, she has to eat the chocolate biscuit accompanying it, symbolic of her accepting his love, something which Jaideep will never learn.
While we were filming the scene, I was so moved by the way Sonam spontaneously started crying while reading the letter that I called for ‘Cut’ and she had to remind me that she was meant to eat the biscuit too.
We had to reshoot the scene and it was amazing how she did it once more with the same feeling and this time, when she was eating the chocolate biscuit, I felt like I was seeing a master at work.
‘She has an excellent memory’
IMAGE: Sonam Kapoor with Rama Bhanot, Neerja’s mother. Photograph: Kind courtesy Ram Madhvani/Instagram
Sonam had begun her career as an assistant director (on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2005 film Black) and on Neerja‘s set, she was a great help as a first AD too.
As an actress, she was a revelation.
I shoot very long takes, and before the interaction with the four terrorists, I went to her make-up van to brief her, explaining that they have infiltrated the airport disguised as security officers escorting a Libyan diplomat.
As they rush the plane, armed with grenades and AK-47s, she is notified and without even meeting them, she tries to stop them by alerting the three American pilots in the cockpit who escape through the overhead hatch of the Boeing 747 while she returns to the cabin determined to save the situation.
It was a long scene.
She listened to me attentively, processing everything that I was saying and during the shoot, and remembered everything I had detailed, including her lines.
She has an excellent memory.
‘On this happy occasion, I wish her more work and another National Award’
IMAGE: Ram Madhvani, Rama Bhanot, Sonam Kapoor, Neerja’s brother Akhil Bhanot. Photograph: Kind courtesy Ram Madhvani/Instagram
I have a huge regard for Sonam’s fashion sense.
It is not put on; it comes naturally to her.
She uses clothes as a statement and sometimes even as armour, carrying off clothes with great panache which came in very handy while we were marketing the film.
When we were going for the trailer launch, she called me to say sweetly, ‘Ram, it’s going to be quite hot with all the lights, so remember to carry your handkerchief.’
That’s Sonam, with all her gentleness and kindness!
She’s a voracious reader, which gives her a world view and sets her apart.
Today, she turns 40, which I say is 20 multiplied by two because she still has the energy of a 20 year old.
On this happy occasion, I wish her more work and another National Award.
I want to see her grow from strength to strength with the roles she plays and go on to have as long a career as her father, Anil Kapoor, has had, maybe even longer.
