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Bajirao Mastani: When Sanjay Leela Bhansali wanted audience to feel humiliation that Deepika Padukone’s character went through because she was ‘other woman’
In a recent interaction, Sanjay Leela Bhansali spoke about his process of filmmaking and his urge to make the audience feel the emotions of his characters. He gave examples from Bajirao Mastani and Heeramandi.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an ace filmmaker who has added to the rich history of Indian cinema in the past decades. Just like every artist, he also has a process that makes him create iconic films like Devdas and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. During an interview, he spoke about making the audience feel the emotions of his characters, be it through his screenplay, the costumes, the props in the set or the background score. Talking about his magnum opus, Bajirao Mastani, SLB stated that he wanted cinema watchers to feel the humiliation that Mastani felt when she was called the ‘other woman’.
While talking to The Hollywood Reported India about his process of filmmaking, Sanjay Leela Bhansali stated that for him, it’s the essence of that moment that he wants to create and make the audience resonate with it. He stated that some scenes that become iconic come alive when he is creating them on sets and for that he has to be alive.
The filmmaker-music composer stated that his filmmaking is more than the hair fluttering or the eye moving. For him, it’s about moments, faces, about letting the audience feel in which place he is in. He went on to say that he wanted the viewers to feel the humiliation that Mastani felt (in Bajirao Mastani) “that she was loved by Bajirao but not being accepted by Bajirao and she was the other woman. I made Bajirao because there was a man who said ‘You’re not the other woman. You will come into my house because I love you.' That is why I told that love story of a warrior.”
But to make the viewers feel the emotion, he made Tanvi Azmi’s character Radhabai and added layers to a scene to exude what he wants people to interpret. This is how he likes a film to be; to have mystery, enigma, a sense of unraveling that he is doing. Giving another example, Bhansali stated that the moment when Manisha Koirala’s character Mallikajaan from debut OTT series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, went to the fountain to purify herself after being assaulted by the Britishers came alive because during the making, he questioned himself, ‘How am I going to make the audience feel what Manisha is feeling?’
Meanwhile, on the work front, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is all set to direct Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Vicky Kaushal in his next titled Love And War. The movie is expected to hit cinemas in March 2026.
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