Smriti Mundhra On Getting Reclusive YRF Chief Aditya Chopra To Talk In Netflix Docu-Series ‘The Romantics’
14.02.2023 - 11:13
/ deadline.com
Indian-American filmmaker Smriti Mundhra is again collaborating with Netflix on docu-series The Romantics, which looks back on 50 years of iconic Indian film studio Yash Raj Films (YRF) and its late founder Yash Chopra.
The four-part series is streaming globally from today (February 14), deliberately coinciding with Valentine’s Day, as Chopra was known for directing romantic films such as Kabhi Kabhie, Veer-Zaara, Chandni and Lamhe.
Mundhra has filmed interviews with 35 figures of the Hindi-language film industry, from major stars including all three ‘Khans’, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan, to producers, writers, critics, journalists, and costume designers.
But the real coup was getting Chopra’s famously reclusive son, Aditya Chopra, to talk on camera. A filmmaker in his own right, Chopra directed the longest-running Hindi film ever, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (known colloquially as DDLJ), and took over the reins of the studio following his father’s death in 2012, but hasn’t given an interview in any form since 1995.
Mundhra, who also created reality series Indian Matchmaking for Netflix, grew up mostly in the U.S. but says YRF films were “part of the fabric of my upbringing”. Her parents ran a movie theatre in Los Angeles, which was one of the first U.S. venues to show Hindi films and held a premiere for Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie in the 1970s.
She says that for most NRI (non-resident Indian) kids growing up in the U.S., the YRF films played a big role in how they learned to speak Hindi. “Especially in the ‘90s when we came of age and the films became more accessible to us, they started to take on a new resonance. DDLJ was a great example of that. It was the first time we weren’t just watching our parents’