Hansal Mehta reveals why he didn’t cast gay actors in Modern Love Mumbai – Hindustan Times
Filmmaker Hansal Mehta broke silence about not casting a gay actor in his entry in the recent anthology series Modern Love: Mumbai. He directed the episode Baai from the series, which focused on a love story between a gay couple. While the episode was loved by many, it was criticised by some from the queer community for its casting. (Also read: Modern Love Mumbai episode on gay romance not available in UAE)
Modern Love: Mumbai consisted of six stories of love all, set in Mumbai. Among them, Baai starred Pratik Gandhi and Ranveer Brar as a couple in love. Responding to people’s reaction to the casting, Hansal called it an ‘aesthetic choice.’
In a conversation with Mashable India, Hansal said, “I understand what they (the queer community) are saying and I believe that representation should come from the stories. If somebody is right for the cast, whether queer or straight, they should be cast correctly.” He recalled working with Kangana Ranaut in his film Simran and added, “I have never fallen for a trap except, maybe one or two times, such as when I made Simran with Kangana. I always try to be as honest as possible with the casting.”
He also said that keeping people’s thoughts in mind, he will try to bring a change. “I will have queer representation if the actors are correct for the part. These are the aesthetic choices you make. But I don’t see a reason for a backlash. There’s an honest representation. I have seen it happening in front of me,” he reasoned. He also revealed that people have criticised the episode for being ‘old fashioned’ and called it a ‘clash of culture.’ He further cited the example of Manoj Bajpayee who starred in his critically-acclaimed film Aligarh as a gay character despite being straight himself.
Modern Love Mumbai is the Hindi adaptation of the famous US series Modern Love, based on the New York Times’ famous Modern Love column. Apart from Hansal Mehta’s Baai, it has five other stories directed by–Raat Rani (Shonali Bose), Mumbai Dragon (Vishal Bhardwaj), My Beautiful Wrinkles (Alankrita Shrivastava), I Love Thane (Dhruv Sehgal), and Cutting Chai (Nupur Asthana). It premiered on Amazon Prime Videos.
