Actor Ranbir Kapoor spoke about starting out in the film industry as an assistant to director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, at a time when ‘every filmmaker’ in Bollywood had expressed their desire to work with him. Ranbir said that his father, the late Rishi Kapoor, felt that he was getting too much attention, and sent him abroad to study. When Ranbir returned, he enrolled in the best ‘film school’ that he could find – Bhansali’s set.
In an interview with entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, he recalled what a tough taskmaster Bhansali was, and how the experience ‘hardened’ him for the future. Ranbir went on to make his acting debut with Bhansali’s 2007 film, Saawariya. Asked about his beginnings, he said, “When I came back (to India), every director in the film industry wanted to launch me. But I was a big fan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I was like, ‘If every director wants to work with me, why isn’t Sanjay Leela Bhansali offering me a movie?’ Maybe he wasn’t aware of me. So, I made a resume and went and sat outside his office.”
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Ranbir said that the filmmaker agreed to meet him the next day. “Reading my name (on the resume), he understood who I was. I told him I’m a big fan; Devdas had just released. On the first day itself, he told me that he wanted to make a film with me, so my ambition was achieved right there. But those one-and-a-half years that I spent assisting on Black was actually the biggest film school of my life.”
Ranbir recalled Bhansali’s famous temper, and said that it prepared him for the future. “He was a very hard taskmaster. We were working 14-15 hours a day. There were 10 other assistants, but I wasn’t (treated like) some special kid because of who I was. I was like everybody else. He was… very short-tempered. There was a lot of anger coming our way, and I think that really hardened me. It really prepared me for anything in life.”
At an event in 2021, Ranbir had accused Bhansali of being physically violent with him when they worked together on Black. “When I assisted Mr (Sanjay Leela) Bhansali (on Black), he used to really treat me as an assistant director. I used to be kneeling down for hours, he used to hit us, he used to abuse us… that only hardens you and prepares you for the world,” he said. Ranbir also told Neha Dhupia on her show that he walked out of the project, and vowed to never work with Bhansali again. “He was beating me…after a point it got so heavy and I felt so tortured that I had to quit the film at a point…I think it was like 10 or 11 months into my job and I am like ‘ listen I can’t do this, its getting to me’ I think I am too sensitive and emotional and he got to know me so well and he kind of kept poking into that… he got too much, went crazy as far as I was concerned,” he said.
In a recent interview, Bhansali addressed complaints about his temper, and told India Today, “If I’m not getting what I want, even if I lose my temper, what is wrong in it? If you’re not getting a shot, and if someone is spoiling it, what will you do? People have made stories that I’m angry, that I’m badly behaved…” Despite this, Ranbir and Bhansali are set to work together on the film Love & War, which will also feature Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal.
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