Organic chemistry between me and Sushant a pleasant surprise: Kriti Sanon

How much could you relate to the character of Saira, you played in the film?

Not too much. Saira is much different from me. In fact when I read the script, I felt that she was actually a quiet character.  She was someone who doesn't have parents since the age of two and was bit quirky. Initially when I was supposed to be introvert and quiet during shooting, Dino (Dinesh Vijan, director) came to me and said that he never wanted the character to be quiet. He said that the character should be quirky, endearing, surprising, unpredictable. So we tried to build the character with certain body languages, mannerisms to make it look different from the ones we have seen before.

How was the working experience with Sushant with whom you shared screen for the first time?

It is amazing. Before the shooting of this film, we never met. I knew he was a fantastic actor who could do different kind of roles. This was a headache already for me. When Dinesh met Sushant, he was doing Byomkesh (Byomkesh Bakshi, Hindi film). Then he was in a serious zone and quiet because of the shooting of Byomkesh.. Later during the workshop, I found out that he talks a lot, though he feels he doesn't (smiles). But thankfully he does talk a lot. Somehow we had the organic chemistry which had a very pleasant surprise because Raabta is a kind of film that it is all about.

Which scenes from the film are your favourites?

Oh! This is so tough question for me. There are so many actually. I like one when the two characters first met and had a walk. We were conversing along with the walk. The walking scene was originally meant to be about 30 seconds. But, both of us (Kriti and Sushant) continued to talk to each other where he said something to which I replied or the other way round. In this way the scene went on for about 1-1.5 minutes and Dino (director Dinesh Vijan) kept the full scene in the film because it looked so natural. I liked this scene a lot.

Deepika Padukone took part in the title song of the film. Did you get time to interact with her in between shooting? How was your experience on the shooting floor?

Unfortunately, she was in the shooting for one to two days. She had come to do the cameo in between the schedule of her film xXx (Padukone was then shooting for the Hollywood film xXx) and we were really happy because she wanted to be a part of the film. She had a special equation with Dino (Dinesh). She is so hardworking, dedicated, easy and chilled-out on the sets that we had great fun with her and came to the shooting floor before time so all of us had lunch together. But, we didn't get much time to interact with her because we had to shoot the whole thing in a limited period of time.

What is the unique thing about Raabta?

Generally two people meet, they come to know each other, then start liking and eventually love happens, followed by certain other things. But in this film, Shiv and Saira (characters played by Sushant and Kriti)  meet for the first time as complete strangers, who haven't spoken to each other but feels intense connection and the familiarity that they do not understand. So it's like two strangers meeting and feeling familiar for no reason and they slowly figures it out.

What is the special raabta (connection) between you and Sushant?

Like the characters in the film, we didn't know each other but without knowing we could communicate well. We really were listening to each other. I think it is rare to react without knowing each other so the chemistry seemed to be organic. It has been very natural.

Which song is your favourite one from the film?

I like Main Tera Boyfriend but Ik Vaari Aa would be special to me as I can listen to that song in any mood or zone I am in.

Images by Avishek Mitra