Parul Yadav on producing four remakes of Kangana Ranaut's Queen: 'What we've done is historic'

From playing a quintessential mainstream heroine in Kannada films such as Govindaya Namaha, Bachchan and Aatagara to proving her mettle with a meaty role in Ram Gopal Varma’s Killing Veerappan, actress Parul Yadav has come a long way in her career. In this exclusive chat with Firstpost, Parul opens up about turning co-producer with the south remakes of Kangana Ranaut’s Queen, why she green-lit the project despite being advised to not do it and the setbacks and learning from this journey. Three years ago, when Parul watched Kangana’s Queen, she fell in love with the film. She hoped someone would remake the film in Kannada and when she pitched the idea, she was advised against it. “I was told if I do this film, no big star would be willing to work with me. No producer was ready to gamble on a female-centric film. Queen is a very universal subject and I was confident that it’ll work irrespective of the language it gets made. Finally, I decided to co-produce the remakes along with my friend Manu Kumaran,” Parul said, adding that she’s proud of what they’ve achieved. “Even though this is my first film as a producer, it didn’t stop us from doing four films. It’s not a remake in a single language. This is something historic and we’re proud of what we’ve done. It’s not easy to shoot four films simultaneously.” [caption id=“attachment_5429221” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  From L to R: Tamannah Bhatia in the Telugu remake, Kajal Aggarwal in the Tamil version, Parul Yadav in Kannada remake and Majima Mohan in the Malayalam version of Queen.[/caption] Parul also plays the lead in the Kannada version of the remake. Titled Butterfly, the Kannada version has been directed by actor-filmmaker Ramesh Arvind. Talking about the experience of juggling two hats, Parul said, “It was two roles and I had to do justice to both of them. I’d take care of the production till the last minute and 4-5 days before the shoot, I’d get into the shoot mode for my character. I had a team which was very supportive and I couldn’t have pulled this off without their support. The challenging part was to be this confident producer on set and play a timid, under confident character while shooting.” While Tamannaah Bhatia plays the lead in the Telugu version, Kajal Aggarwal plays the titular role in the Tamil version. In the Malayalam version, Manjima Mohan plays the lead. Parul is all praise for her co-stars. “None of us felt insecure working with each other. Even though we’re well aware that our performances will be compared, we didn’t let such thoughts bother us. It was wonderful to work alongside them. We’d be shooting few meters away from each other and meet on breaks. Whenever needed, we exchanged ideas,” she revealed. Parul dedicated two years of her career on this project. Has it been worth it? “I knew if I take up this project, I’ll have to sacrifice a few other projects. That’s exactly what happened but I have no regrets. Most people would turn to production after they retire from acting. Here, I took up production when I’m at the peak of my career. I wanted to see this project get made, and hence, it was important for me to take up the film.” Despite facing setbacks early on, Parul and her team managed to complete the projects. “The biggest setback was director Neelakanta opting out of the project. We were under a lot of pressure but we quickly roped in Prashant Varma to take over the reins. A project of this scale is bound have setbacks and nobody can do anything about it. Things did look impossible for us at one point but we bounced back strongly and completed the project as planned.”