Ram Gopal Varma revealed that a famous director couldn’t sit through KGF 2, struggling to watch beyond 15 minutes.
Yash and Ram Gopal Varma.
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma recently shared that a renowned director found it incredibly difficult to watch KGF 2. In a conversation with the director, Varma learned that he had to step away multiple times and even practice yoga to get through the film.
Speaking about the incident, Varma told Pinkvilla, “A very famous director, he told me. I was chatting with him on the phone. He said, ‘Ramu, try to see KGF 2, you know. After 15 minutes, I couldn’t take it,’ and then he went to a breathing session on the balcony, and he did some kind of pranayama. He came back and saw another 15 minutes, and then he took a shower, and he said, ‘I was willing myself.’ He hated the film, and then he said, ‘I couldn’t take it after the interval.’”
Varma further revealed that despite the director’s personal struggle with the Yash-starrer, he was surprised by its massive commercial success. The filmmaker said the director later found himself analyzing the film’s appeal, even when discussing other scripts.
“Two days later, he was sitting with his writer, and the writer was telling him something, and he said, ‘How can that happen? It’s so illogical or something.’ ‘Yeah, but that’s what worked in KGF 2,’ the writer said. So he said, ‘Now this whole old Hollywood line, you can argue about the content; you can’t argue with success.’”
Varma then reflected on the dilemma faced by directors when a film they dislike turns into a massive hit. He questioned whether filmmakers should adapt to popular trends despite their creative instincts.
He also spoke about his personal experience of losing conviction in a project, referencing his film Department. He admitted, “When you are somewhere pushed to a corner to face things, you can’t have an answer for. So you start losing your own conviction, and sometimes in my work also. It happened to me the most in Department because the point when I started it, it was a very realistic story and everything. Despite that, I got carried away, and I started catering to what the audience seemed to want.”
