Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor's Animal is smashing box office records left and right and is en route to becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time in Indian cinema history. The Hindi action thriller film directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga also stars Rashmika Mandanna, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Tripti Dimri, and Babloo Prithiveeraj, among others, and continues to dominate the buzz on social media for nearly three weeks since its release in theatres worldwide. As Animal continues to witness a spectacular audience turnout in cinemas everywhere, Sandeep Reddy Vanga sat down for a candid conversation with National Award-winning film critic Baradwaj Rangan, the Editor-in-Chief of Galatta Plus, with the filmmaker explaining the reason for showing Ranbir Kapoor as a 60-year-old at the beginning of the film, while also talking about his plans for the second and third installments.
Speaking about Animal, Sandeep Reddy Vanga explained, "I thought maybe a Part 2 or a Part 3 where the old man is narrating. I thought it was a nice way of opening the film with laughter and he's telling a monkey joke. A monkey is a kind of animal that has no control. They say, 'Don't behave like a monkey.' That means, most of the time, you don't have control. And, out of all the animals, the way you say monkey only you'll feel something about it. The way you pronounce it or... So, that's a very old joke from Karnataka when I was studying physiotherapy and heard it 20 years back. It stayed with me. There was a time in college when somebody would call someone and they never used to turn back because you know what he's going to do. It was such a famous joke."
Describing the scene in Animal, Sandeep Reddy Vanga stated, "The moment is a hundred years of Swastik celebration and I thought it would not be like 3,000 people. I thought it would be only close people; 15 or 20 people, who are drunk till the morning and he's talking about his father. His cousins must have heard that story 150 times. That's why they're like, 'F***, man. How many times are you going to narrate the same story to me?' And, he looks at everybody and then says a dialogue, 'Tumko jazbaat nahin chahiye na? Tumko entertainment chahiye? Toh, tumko ek bandar ka joke bataatha hoon (You don't want any emotions, right? You want entertainment. So, I'll tell you a monkey joke). I thought in the edit that I didn't need that dialogue. It is coming through his eyes so much that there's no need for me to use the dialogue. Then, he'll say, 'Okay, guys' and he'll put the glass down and say, 'I'll tell you a joke.' Then, everybody is laughing, and he's just looking at them. He's looking in a way thinking, 'Okay, you guys need only this.' When you see the father dying of leukemia in the climax and you know he's going to die, you don't know how the death happened, right? So, I thought, 'You're 60 years old and you're still feeling for your father.' Because I've noticed my uncles and in my real life and also the other people, who lose their parents at the age of thirties and forties, and those who lose parents at the age of 60, the pain is not the same. I don't know why. I find it very strange."
Watch Sandeep Reddy Vanga in conversation with Baradwaj Rangan in the video below:
