Can't afford to play with people's emotions: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra on 'Karna'

Yas Island, Abu Dhabi: A filmmaker has a certain responsibility towards millions of cinema goers who turn up to watch movies and he can't afford to play with their emotions, says director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, whose next film Karna is reportedly based on the iconic Mahabharata character.

There are reports Mehra's ambitious project will see Tamil movie star Suriya in the titular role with Janhvi Kapoor playing the role of Draupadi.   The filmmaker, known for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Delhi-6 and Rang De Basanti, was in Abu Dhabi to attend the IIFA Awards 2024.

“I don’t see a film as big or small but it’s a responsibility to tell a story. You are responsible to millions of people who watch the movie because I can’t afford to play with the emotions. I have to invest in the emotion."

“Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with the audience, they’ve given me a lot of love, and that gives me a lot of strength,” Mehra told PTI on the awards green carpet when asked whether he feels more responsible while working on a film like Karna.

Asked if he was spending a lot of time on research, the filmmaker said, “I wake up at 3:30 in the morning and start working.” Mehra, whose Bhaag Milkha Bhaag based on the life of the Indian athletic legend Milkha Singh won two National Awards, said the trend of sports biopics is a welcome one.

“We need to honour real-life heroes, whether they are from sports or politics, or they are social activists. I think a lot needs to be told (on screen) about social activists,” he added.

Could a movie like Rang De Basanti be made today and receive the same amount of love and acceptance that it did when it released in 2006? Mehra said, “100 per cent.” Rang De Basanti begins as a story of a group of college students who join a British filmmaker's documentary on freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla Khan and Sukhdev Rajguru. The friends realise that they have to take on the system the way their heroes did to fight corruption and injustice.

The multiple National Award-winning film starred Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Atul Kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Alice Patten, Soha Ali Khan, and R Madhavan.