Anurag Kashyap was surprised to know that Rahul Dravid knew about him: ‘I was gobsmacked’

The moment became even more special for Anurag Kashyap when he realised that Rahul Dravid knew who he was. Clearly elated, the filmmaker shared, “And when he said, ‘All the best, and thanks for all the work you do,’ I was like, oh, he knows me. For him to know me is very special. He’s literally the hero, the wall.” Kashyap also laughingly recounted what happened just after the picture was taken. “And then when we went to the steps, he ran up the steps, and I was taking the escalator. I was like, ah, there goes the sportsman.”

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Previously, in an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, Anurag Kashyap had spoken candidly about his 2015 film Bombay Velvet and how its leading man Ranbir Kapoor reacts whenever the film is brought up in interviews. “I think Ranbir was very upset that, and he keeps saying, ‘Why do you keep talking about Bombay Velvet? Just ignore it. The film didn’t work, it didn’t work, but you don’t have to talk about it all the time.’ But people ask me questions all the time, how can I just ignore that?”

Reflecting on the immediate aftermath of the film’s failure, Kashyap spoke about the emotional difficulty of facing his actors. He said, “We don’t meet often. Whenever we meet, we just hug and greet each other. And at the beginning, I just didn’t know how to face them because they had given me a lot of trust and love. And I was dealing with my own demons. So I needed to come out of that and make a very small film. I was very focused on Raman Raghav. But slowly, I think, we became distant.”

Anurag Kashyap last directed the two-part crime saga Nishaanchi and is now gearing up for the release of his upcoming film Bandar, starring Bobby Deol.