Directing Robert Redford, Jane Fonda wonderful: Ritesh Batra
New Delhi, Jan 5 (IANS) “The Lunchbox” director Ritesh Batra says directing cinema legends Robert Redford and Jane Fonda for “Our Souls At Night” was a wonderful experience, which will stay with him forever.
Batra, who garnered global acclaim with “The Lunchbox”, was roped in by on-demand streaming website Netflix to direct veteran actors Redford and Fonda in “Our Souls At Night”. Co-produced by Finola Dwyer, Redford and Erin Simms, “Our Souls At Night” is an adaptation of a Kent Haruf novel.
Asked to describe working with Hollywood actors, Batra said words can’t do justice to his experience.
“It is a movie with Redford and Fonda, and Netflix is producing the movie. It was a wonderful experience working with them. They are legends and it was great shooting with them. I can’t say enough how great it was,” Batra told IANS over phone from Mumbai.
For now, Batra — who was lauded at several international film extravaganzas in Cannes, Zurich, London and Toronto, and earned a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for “The Lunchbox” — is busy with another foreign project, “The Sense of An Ending”.
Batra is looking forward to the release of the British film based on Julian Barnes’ novel “The Sense of an Ending”, featuring Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent. PVR Pictures will be releasing the film in India.
Talking about the movie, Batra said: “I am glad that the trailer has been received well, and I am looking forward to the release of the movie. The movie is releasing in March in the US and they are also releasing the film in India at the same time.”
Adapted by award-winning playwright Nick Payne from Julian Barnes’s Booker prize-winning novel “The Sense of an Ending”, the film stars Broadbent as a recluse who is forced to face the devastating legacy of his first love and revise his understanding of his own nature.
Apart from Broadbent, the film stars Michelle Dockery and Charlotte Rampling, and is co-financed by BBC Films and produced by Origin Pictures.
Batra says it is important that people “back home also watch your work no matter where you do it”.
Is he nervous?
“If I was nervous, I would never admit it,” said Batra.
