NDTV Exclusive: Lootera Director Vikramaditya Motwane On Ranveer-Sonakshi Off Screen And The Weirdest Review

Vikramaditya Motwane's Lootera, was a tragic letter to forbidden love—the pain that lingers, the loss that wanders, and the love that speaks volumes without having to say anything at all.

Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh were just three years old in the movie business. Vikramaditya Motwane imagined a vintage world with Pakhi (Sonakshi) and Varun (Ranveer).

Lootera was set against the backdrop of the 1950s, when newly independent India's Zamindari Abolition Act had just come into force. Ranveer Singh played the role of a conman named Varun, while Sonakshi was Pakhi, the daughter of a Bengali zamindar.

Instagram/Vikramaditya Motwane

13 years later, Lootera is set to re-release on March 7, 2025, the film is being re-released by PVR INOX. With the ongoing trend of re-releases, Lootera's return to the big screen reaffirms the love it found years after its original release.

Lootera was declared a flop film back in the day. However, Motwane begs to disagree. Why? Because no one lost any money on that film, says the director.

"Band Baaja Baaraat And Lootera Aren't The Same"

Vikramaditya Motwane highlights the painstaking tendency of the audience or trends in the movie business, where they believe that if a film has a star cast, it must cross a certain number at the box office. And if it doesn't? Then the film is immediately put in the box of failures.

He says, "So, you can't have the same benchmark put together for a Band Baaja Baaraat and Lootera, in terms of, say, Ranveer Singh. The two films have the same stars, yes, but you know they cannot be judged on the same benchmark. So, I think it's more from that perspective that Sonakshi did Lootera in the middle of her commercial films like Dabangg and Son of Sardar, and Ranveer while doing Band Baaja Baaraat and Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl - these are commercial films and hence will get commercial numbers. But Lootera was not that."

On Sonakshi Being Asked To Not Go For An Arty Film So Early In Her Career

Earlier, during a media interaction, Sonakshi revealed how she was repeatedly asked to think twice before doing an "arty" film like Lootera that has a very limited audience in its periphery.

The director says, "There's no logic behind it. Why shouldn't she?"

Motwane elaborates, "I have always said that you should make a film for forever; not just for now. The longevity of the film should be beyond just those two months after its release. Today, if you see Sonakshi or Ranveer's filmography, Lootera will be at the very top of it. And does that not showcase their versatility and range? That's how stars stay as stars in public memory."

Weirdest Review Of Lootera

Lootera opened to a barrage of reviews; a fair mix of positive and negative. But out of the many reviews that truly applauded Sonakshi and Ranveer's performances, and Vikramaditya Motwane's artistic vision, one particularly stood out.

Motwane laughs as he shares, "I remember there was one review where the film got five stars. But the reviewer wrote a whole paragraph about Sonakshi's nose. And I remember Sonakshi reacting very positively, 'What does this mean? Why write a paragraph about my nose?' It was a beautiful review, but I remember we were quite tickled about it."

Did the underwhelming response bother relatively newbies like Ranveer and Sonakshi back then? They were yet to taste the lows of a film's average reception.

The director reacts, "No, I don't think they were upset about the reviews. I think more about the reception of the film, because it was a significant one. I think Sonakshi found it ironic that she wasn't considered for an award for a film that was one of her finest performances. But I think they also had their heads on their shoulders and knew that it is a part and parcel of the industry, and that you have to move on quickly, and I think we all did."

Ranveer Singh And Sonakshi Sinha Off Camera

Over the years, Ranveer Singh has successfully achieved the title of a firecracker in the industry. So, how were Ranveer and Sonakshi when the cameras weren't rolling on the Lootera sets, we ask.

Motwane shares, "Oh, I remember I had to go and take away Ranveer's coffee. Precisely why you said that - because he's so high on energy. I told him that's it. And funnily, it was he who said that he'd go for green tea instead."

Instagram/Vikramaditya Motwane

As for Sonakshi, the director continues, "She's lovely. There was a particular scene that we were shooting in a car where she gets an injection. Because we were stuck in that car for so long, and she got so irritated that she cribbed, 'I want to go home', what you don't see is how she changes when the light goes off and then comes on. She would be complaining when it went off, and then suddenly smiling when it came on."

Why Sonakshi And Ranveer?

The director says, "I saw Sonakshi in her debut film Dabangg; her eyes were absolutely beautiful. I think she was phenomenal. As for Ranveer, Band Baaja Baaraat, and I was surprised to know that he is actually from Bombay and not Delhi, such was the conviction."

Vikramaditya Motwane's debut directorial Udaan and Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh's debut films; Dabangg and Band Baaja Baaraat respectively; were released in the same year—2010.

As destiny might have it, their paths crossed when Lootera was being planned and prepped. And the rest is history.

The Most Spontaneous And Toughest Scenes From The Film

Many times, it's the spontaneity of the actor that makes an ordinary scene extraordinary. 

With Lootera, it happens when Varun (Ranveer) has to force Pakhi (Sonakshi) to take her injection. Sonakshi's character battles chronic tuberculosis in the movie.

Vikramaditya says, "He had to force her into a corner and struggle to make her take the injection. And when we were there at that house in Dalhousie, the scene was initially written as something that had to be done in one place. But then we thought why not try it this way, show the whole struggle and that somehow made the scene dynamic. It was also a lot of fun because the two leads were just hitting each other off."

As for the challenges, the director recollects how the entire film was a challenge from the production standpoint. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

The director shares, "We were supposed to start off in Dalhousie and we weren't getting snow and suddenly we got the highest snowfall in 40 years in that place and then when we built the set, it collapsed."

He continues, "We moved the entire production from Dalhousie to Bengal to shoot the first half of the film. Weren't ready for that. Then eventually we came and shot the whole sequence in May; it was crazy. But I think the most challenging part was the crux of the story, the last tree-climbing scene where Varun (Ranveer) tries to stick that one leaf on to the branches. There were too many things to consider."

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Vikramaditya Motwane recently shared some BTS stills from Lootera on Instagram, and wrote, "To return to its magnificent, delicate world of love and longing—to go back to who you were when you first watched it."

12 years later, Hindi films have changed. They have evolved; they have seen crises; they have also found a foothold in a new, post-Covid world order, much like their audiences. But for fans of Lootera, who go back to who they were when they first watched the film, the emotion will probably always remain Ankahee.