Saiyaara Actor Varun Badola Opposes Director Mohit Suri's "Organic Views" Claim: "Promotions Team Went A Little Overboard"
What's Happening
Varun Badola, who played Ahaan Panday's father in the film, hasn't seen the film yet.
In an interview with Screen, he said the team didn't anticiapte such a massive response while shooting for the film. "When we were working on the film, we hadn't thought it would get so big; everyone must have thought that the film should at least earn what had gone behind producing it. But on the third day of the release, when the film blew up at the box office, we realized it had gone big. I still haven't watched Saiyaara," he said.
Talking about the reels of Gen-Z shedding tears, which flooded social media, Varun said, "By the third or fourth day, the film was being talked about. I saw the euphoria on Instagram. Log jo chudiyaan tod rahe hai, chaatiyaan peet rahe hai (People were breaking their bangles, beating themselves). I think the promotions team went a little overboard there, where people are going to see the film, putting IV drips. Those people must have been told to give content in some way; thank god, people didn't get their legs broken and went crawling to see the film."
"It's okay. We understand promoting the film, but it's good only up to a certain level. However, the film cannot earn so much money just based on Instagram promotions. People have gone and seen the film, and they have loved it," he added.
What Mohit Suri Said
In an exclusive conversation with NDTV, Yash Raj Films CEO Akshaye Widhani and director Mohit Suri said there were no paid promotions.
Tagging all reactions as "organic", YRF CEO said, "It was amazing to see that when the reactions started pouring in, we started seeing some of these reels from smaller cities, from different centres and none of this was designed. These were actual audience reactions."
Mohit Suri chimed in: "You can't script these."
In A Nutshell
Saiyaara actor Varun Badola said that the film's promotional team went "overboard" to create the mass hysteria. His views opposed what Mohit Suri and Yash Raj Films CEO Akshaye Widhani claimed earlier.
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