Samrat Prithviraj director Chandraprakash Dwivedi on audience rejecting Akshay Kumar in the role: ‘Boycotting it for things he has done in past…’
Samrat Prithviraj director Chandraprakash Dwivedi has said that he doesn’t agree with what Akshay Kumar said about the king being underrepresented in history textbooks, but boycotting the film based on the actor is unfair.
Actor Akshay Kumar fuelled the fire of controversy when he suggested that Prithviraj Chauhan hasn’t been given appropriate importance in history textbooks, whereas entire chapters are devoted to ‘foreign invaders’. His comments came ahead of the release of his historical epic Samrat Prithviraj, directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi. The filmmaker in a recent interview with Film Companion spoke about his star’s comments, and claimed that he was very concerned about not projecting the Mughals as the villains in his film. Dwivedi also appeared to distance himself from the actor said.
In an interview with news agency ANI, Kumar had said in Hindi, “It’s a sad thing that we don’t know about our own kings. There are only a few lines about our kings. But there are a lot of chapters on invaders.”
Dwivedi told FC, “When Akshay sir had asked his son about Prithviraj Chauhan he replied that he had no knowledge about who that was. That was Akshay’s trigger point where he started inquiring why we never teach what we may call ‘Hindu history’. Now this is what he thinks, it isn’t my opinion nor is it the opinion of my producers. He expressed this opinion on a show, and so people started to think Samrat Prithviraj was a historical film. But he never said this was a historical film. People got his message mixed up.”
The filmmaker said that the ‘number one misconception’ about his film is that it is a historical, but that it is based on the poem Prithviraj Raso, whose historical value has long been debated. The idea of boycotting the film because of the actor’s past behaviour, or because people never bought him in the role, is something that the filmmaker said he can’t wrap his head around.
He added, “See, it’s not like you don’t have the right to reject an actor but he’s been working for 30 years so you know his capabilities. Akshay Kumar has done the role to the best of his potential. He is not the first actor whose performance the audience hasn’t liked but to boycott him for his acting as Prithviraj makes no sense; boycotting his film due to things he has done in the past, such as promoting paan masala or saying that one shouldn’t give Lord Shiva milk, makes no sense because these matters have nothing to do with the movie at all.”
The filmmaker asserted in the interview that he was aware of the cultural subtext of pointing fingers at foreign invaders, at a time when Mughals are being ‘vilified’. The film ends with the disclaimer that Prithviraj’s reign was followed by the rule of ‘videshi humlawaron’. “Yes, I did worry about that when making the film. What was surprising is that the opposition to the film came from all sides. Many people questioned why I didn’t show the atrocities committed by Ghori or why I didn’t show the rape of Sanyogita, the slaughter of cows and brahmins, etc. All I want to ask this section of viewers is where did they read this in Raso? None of these events have been referred to in the poem. There’s a lot of misinformation on the internet…” he said.
Samrat Prithviraj is one of the biggest box office flops of the year, and is nearing the end of its theatrical run with less than Rs 80 crore domestically, against a reported budget that some have claimed ran up to Rs 300 crore. This was his second flop of the year, after Bachchhan Paandey. He will attempt to bounce back with August’s Raksha Bandhan.
News Source:- The Indian EXPRESS
