Renuka Shahane, Lakshmi R Iyer open up on First Second Chance, mature love story films

Filmmaker Lakshmi R Iyer put the spotlight on mature love story in her latest short film First Second Chance, which stars Renuka Shahane and Ananth Mahadevan .

Iyer had been keen on making a love story that didn’t revolve around youngsters, so when writer Ravi Kumar Tiwari came up with a script focusing on middle-age romance, she quickly took it up.

“I always wanted to explore middle age-love story in a very warm, romantic and light-hearted way because we Indians work on emotions. I knew that if I made a film on this subject, it would touch many hearts because we don’t have much content for this age group… warm love stories of 40 or 50 plus couples, so that was the reason why I really wanted to explore this age group and genre,” the director tells Firstpost.

“There is a tendency to make mature love stories very sad. I think there is hope everywhere. It’s the timing that matters not the age when it comes to love. There is so much scope for mature love stories because we Indians have sensibilities like that,” she adds.

Once her script was ready, she started working on the cast.

“I had worked with Ananth Mahadevan in another film called The Gandhi Murder. For me, Raman and Vaidehi were characters that I had already designed. When I thought of Raman, the first actor that came to my mind was Ananth Sir,” she recalls.

She called him up and told him about the film, and she immediately gave the green signal. Then she wondered who could play Vaidehi. “Renuka Shahane came to my mind. These are the two warmest faces and people and they are great actors also,” says Iyer, who then cast Nikhil Sangha as younger Raman and Devoleena Bhattacharjee as younger Vaidehi.

Shahane had been also looking forward to working with Iyer.

“I am very fond of Lakshmi. I love her enthusiasm about life, her passion for her projects, so I was interested in working with her. It has been such a pleasant experience for me. She narrated two lines and I said, ’let’s do this’,” says the actress.

The Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! actress simply loved the story of the film. “A lot is said in a small amount of time. I like the storyline. It’s talking about the responsibility of children to look after their parents,” she says.

“It also talks about looking at life… even after a particular age and going ahead and having a healthy companionship with somebody you might not have had the chance to come together with earlier. In that sense, life has offered you a second chance, and you should take it up irrespective of the age,” she adds.

Apart from this, Shahane has been exploring different genres on OTT and challenging herself as an actress. In Stories on the Next Page, she and Rajeshwari Sachdev play a lesbian couple.

“I was very excited because for me, love is love. I am a very liberal and an accepting person,” says Shahane.

“If you are sensitive to the LGBTQ community then as an actor, you should accept roles without thinking arrey log kya sochenge. So I played a character who was in love with a woman… a person who happened to be a woman,” she adds.

She was not apprehensive about taking up the digital project.

“I only wanted director Brinda Mitra to talk to people who have gone through that situation or who are part of the community before doing something like this. I dont like the fact that people who have not been in that situation or who have no understanding of the situation then go on write, direct and create stuff,” shares the actress, who will also star in Chakda Xpress.

“People who are part of the community can guide us about it. We don’t want to do things which don’t sound right or look right. We have to be sensitive. Brinda did consult an activist who is from the LGBTQ community and the script was vetted. Once that was done, then we went ahead and shot it,” she adds.

Acting has been keeping her busy, but directing another Hindi film after last year’s Tribhanga has also been on her mind.

“My forte is interpersonal relationships, so my next directorial will be around it. It’s about a relevant subject, which we don’t talk of very often,” says Shahane.

“If I get producers then I would love to shoot it by the end of this year,” she shares.

Natalia Ningthoujam is a Manipur-based journalist. She knows how to smoothly switch from being a fan to a writer whenever needed. She tweets at @nattynick.

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