Ramayana: Part One Yash on Playing Ravana in Ramayana 2026: "No Boundaries"

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

You know, to play a good guy, you need to follow lots of rules. When you're a bad guy. There is no restriction, no boundaries. Hi guys, I'm Allison with FlickDirect, and I am here with Namit and Yash to talk about Ramayana. Yash. Why is it fun to play a villain? You know, to play a good guy, you need to follow lots of rules. When you're a bad guy, there is no restriction, no boundaries.

In real life. I mean, you can't be or do things which we can do on screen. I think it's as an actor, I really love doing that. And I think most of the people agree with me. All the actors love to do bad guy. It's always fun I have a slight point of view on that. I'm like, you know, one of the things that when Yash, you know, who's an incredible star, you know, across the country in India, and is also our fellow producer on this film, when we spoke a few years ago, the whole aspiration was, you know, it's like my 1st question was, why did Lord Ram have to come into the world?

Like, what was happening that he needed to descend into the earth to, and it was clearly because, you know, Ravana had created such, you know, an impact that someone had to come and bring that balance back in. And that's when I reached out to him and I said, you know what? We need someone with that absolute superstar pedigree to actually come on board to create, you know, that character of Ravana.

So, I mean, you've worked. DNEG has worked with Interstellar, Dune. Why all of these epic, epic films? I think I'd say it's our good fortune that we've had some, you know, incredible filmmakers that have chosen us to really partner with us over the many, many years. And that, you know, that journey that we've had actually gave us a lot of confidence that the more breakthrough work we did with them.

It gave me a lot of confidence to say, hey, can we do something, you know, for India? Can we bring a story that's from India, but bring it to the world in a way that some of the best filmmakers in the world do? And that sort of is the real genesis behind what we're doing today? So what pressure did you feel as an actor to bring this character to life?

The challenge is when you choose a subject like Ramayana, which is so attached to people. And people have seen it in many forms. So it means it's culturally part of everybody's life. So when you try to make a film, it's a great challenge because this is a film where everybody's rooting for it, at the same time, they're very sensitive about it. Like they really don't want anybody to go wrong with this film.

It's a very tricky thing. So we were more stressed about it. But today, I think this is the best we could do, and we are trying to aim at global standards in such a way that it has to be really one of the top notch quality product globally. And as an actor. Yes, but comparatively, I'm okay. I'm playing Ravana. So nobody is bigger when it comes to Ramayana or country for us.

Like, when I had to step into this film, Namit and I, we had a discussion and I understood the vision and we both had a similar vision, so I came in as a producer. And this, playing Ramana, is less stressful as an actor, then being part of the film itself. So talk to me a little bit about the production and the value of it and getting the top notch people.

I even saw Hans Zimmer's name for part of the music in this. And the opportunity to me was, what's that one project that we can actually bring the best of the East and the West to really collaborate on? And like Hans Zimmer came on board, but we also had A.R. Rahman from the other side, we've had the action teams in the names of Guy Norris and Terry Notary, you know, very, very accomplished action directors in Hollywood working with a full-fledged Indian crew on the other side.

And similar to that, whether it's DNEG, the visual effects team, the art team, you know, each and every department, sound design, we're making sure that we're really bringing the best of both worlds, to a true collaboration. I think post-pandemic, a lot of things have changed. And in this internet era and OTT revolution, people are consuming different content.

I think we have been listening to so many stories or watching so many films, I think it's time for us to understand, globally, it's not a monoculture. What we have, there are different cultures, different way of story. storytelling different things we resonate with. So as a cinema industry, I think it becomes a responsibility to bring both the worlds together and give audience a new experience where they also feel familiar with what they've been used to watching with the visual, great visual spectacle and great performances, the best of the technicians all over the globe.

And, you know, with a new take on the emotions which they will be used to or they would want to understand life. Because by the end of the day, good story is something which speaks to you and it resonates with you in certain level. So globally when we are trying to position this film as producers are main aim is to tell the whole world that I know you have seen a lot of big films, spectacles.

It is not just a visual spectacle, but in terms of storytelling or emotions, it's something which you're never experienced before. And coming from a part of the world, I think people here will have such a refreshing experience with this film. So that's something which is our primary goal.