Ranbir Kapoor revealed in a recent interview that veteran actor Randhir Kapoor is suffering from an early stage of dementia. Ranbir told NDTV, “My uncle Randhir Kapoor, who is going through an early stage of dementia, came to me after the film and said, 'Tell dad that he is amazing, and where is he, let's call him'.”
He added, “Art crosses the boundaries of medical conditions... And a good piece of storytelling really embodies that.” Sharmaji Namkeen, which released on Amazon Prime on 31 March, is actor Rishi Kapoor’s last film. After Rishi’s demise in 2020, Paresh Rawal stepped in to complete the film.
Director Hitesh Bhatia revealed that Rishi Kapoor was also involved in the scripting process of Sharmaji Namkeen.
“He was involved in the scripting also. He didn’t like the second half a lot. He said, ‘It’s a great film but the second half is very weak’. And then he gave us a lot of suggestions and he said, ‘Once you guys fix it, come back to me’. We wrote another draft and went back to him and then he said yes,” Bhatia said.
Ranbir revealed that Rishi was very excited about the film, “He was never result driven. The material and the process of how he’s going to do the film is what excited him; how he’s going to change his look, do his own shopping, learn cooking, and that really excited him.” He added that Rishi wanted to ‘understand the nuance’ of the character.
“This film actually really defines that really tough period in his life. When he started the film we did a blood report and found out that he could have leukemia and we had to rush him to America,” Ranbir further said, adding, “His first instinct was, ‘What about this film? I can’t leave this film.’”
Rishi Kapoor was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018 and went to New York to recover and returned to India in September 2019.
Talking about both Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal playing the same character in Sharmaji Namkeen, Ranbir said, “It’s not jarring at all. You’re seeing two very different actors playing the same character who look so different and have different styles. But this character binds them together. At one point Paresh ji is entering the kitchen and suddenly you see my father exiting; that format is not easy to pull off.”
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