Let people decide what they want to see: Randeep Hooda

The Jat boy from Rohtak, Randeep Hooda is known for his grey shaded characters, power-packed performances and the abundance of female attention that he garners. In a recent visit to the capital for the promotion of his latest film Do Lafzon Ki Kahani — his first full-fledged romantic film, he talks about Censor Board’s guidelines, easy availability of free and uncensored online content and the impact of quick weight loss and gain.

In his latest film opposite Kajal Aggarwal, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has asked the filmmaker to edit an 18 seconds long kissing scene to 9 seconds. Randeep points out that CBFC is meant to provide certification, but it should not discourage filmmakers from showing ground reality. He says, “It should be more about certification as CBFC is a certification board and not the Censor Board. They should provide a proper certificate and let the people decide what they want to see. That is the only way out. You know what will happen People will get afraid of dealing with issues and making films about things that are reflective of our society right now, which is really important for filmmakers.”

About censoring words and deleting scenes, he asserts, “There is no censorship on the Internet. Anybody can access any kind of information. The misconception is imagining that people will not access a restricted content. One must understand that a lot of such information is consumed by very young group of audience without any restriction.”

Talking about the controversies around Anurag Kashyap’s upcoming film Udta Punjab, he says, “The issue is about censorship, and not about the film particularly. The film community can come together because of the censorship issue.”

The actor who has had a very busy year with three releases already talks about his busy schedule and how gaining and losing weight in record speed has affected his mental and physical health. “I gained weight to shoot Do Lafzon Ki Kahani and then had to immediately lose 30 kilos for Sarbjit. It hasn’t been easy but with pure will power and a little madness, I have achieved it and I would not recommend the same to anyone. I haven’t been the same, losing fat is a different ball game compared to losing muscle weight. It does take a toll on a person’s physical as well as mental health,” he shares.

Talking about his film Do Lafzon Ki Kahani, he says, “The film is based on the Korean movie Always, where I portray the role of a martial artist and Kajal’s character is of a visually impaired person. The story is about two lonely souls in a foreign city, how they meet and what happens. They meet by fate, but there is a bigger fate that they are not aware of, is playing games with them.”

Preparing for the film was a major challenge for the actor. He shares, “I have hurt myself a lot during the shooting of the film. We have done full contact fight in the movie, so that does not look like a gymnastic shot, and it looks as real as possible. It was challenging for me because my opponents were trained martial arts fighters. They would at times forget that we are shooting for a film and used to hit strong punches. While shooting the first fight sequence, I broke my toes and had to shoot with broken toes throughout the schedule. I have understood the meaning of the saying ‘no pain, no gain’ while shooting for this.”

The lead pair of the film has also decided to donate their eyes during the shoot of the film. “ It was Kajal’s idea and it was a wonderful thought, so even I agreed immediately. There should be widespread awareness programmes and activities to impart the significance of eye donation and its usefulness for visually-impaired people,” says the actor.