 |
| HIGH FIVE: (From left) Rithvik Dhanjani, Chetna Pande and Karan Kundra at the t2 chat at Aqua, The Park |
Karan Kundra is a vampire. Rithvik Dhanjani is a werewolf. Chetna Pande is the damsel in distress, caught between the two. MTV ventures into The Vampire Diaries territory with the supernatural series Fanaah, that goes on air from July 21 (Monday to Friday at 6pm). t2 engaged in a tete-a-tete with the trio at Aqua at The Park recently.
Priyanka Roy: The format of Fanaah is very intriguing and international. Is that what made you want to be a part of it?
Rithvik Dhanjani: The show itself, actually. It’s definitely of international standard, not only in the way it’s looking, but in the way it’s written. The story is very involving.
Karan Kundra: The format is a fantasy. It’s an international format and it’s not going to be like a daily soap… it has got seasons. It is not like ek ladki hai and ek ladka hai, unka chal raha hai aur sab aas paas ghoom raha hai… it’s nothing like that. There are five very prominent characters in the show. It’s dark and edgy, the characters are not all that sweet and nice. I have a good side and a dark side….
Rithvik: All the characters are grey… they have good and bad instincts, which is real and believable. We are not here to create any adarsh bahu or beti.
Chetna Pande: Firstly it is a fantasy show, which is really exciting and my role has an edge and variations.
Shweta Keshri: So do you like playing the good you or the bad you?
Karan: Obviously the dark side! In real life, too, I am very honest… if I do something bad, I openly do it. If I am mean to somebody, I will openly be mean. In the show, there is a good and a bad side and we will be playing both. That’s how usually people are… everybody has their insecurities and vulnerabilities. And the love aspect in the show is very intense.
Malancha Dasgupta: How old are you guys in the show?
Rithvik: This whole story is actually over 100 years. So it starts from 1914 or 1918 to 2014 and spans even before. Everybody is 18 for 500 years!
Chetna: Except me… I die and am born again.
Priyanka: How much of Fanaah is The Vampire Diaries?
Karan: It’s as much The Vampire Diaries as The Final Destination is Aahat! (Laughs)
Rithvik: It’s not The Vampire Diaries. The supernatural genre is inspired, which is your vampires and werewolves, but the rest of the story is placed in today’s India… the vampires and werewolves are from Dehradun! (Laughs)
Shweta: Rithvik, you’ve played a werewolf earlier too… in Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani.
Rithvik: I consider myself lucky because not everybody gets a chance to play a wolf twice, except Hugh Jackman who’s played it seven times as Wolverine! I feel where Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani as a character (Jeh) ended, that’s where Vidyut’s (of Fanaah) story starts.
 |
| The Fanaah trio pose for a selfie Pictures: Rashbehari Das |
Malancha: You’ve said that shooting Fanaah has been like shooting a film…
Rithvik: It has definitely. There is no compromise on the creative content. When you are shooting a daily soap, you get monochromatic, monotonous. With Fanaah, we are really lucky that we are actually coming out with seasons… you know what you have to do next and don’t have to wait for the script to change according to TRPs. You know that you have to give your audience a story from point A to point B for the season and that’s what you are shooting.
Karan: Freshness is very important for a show like this because the kids these days… they have seen everything.
Rithvik: They will laugh at you if you make a blunder. They will rip our cases apart on the Internet. They will be like: ‘Really, werewolves and vampires talk like that? F*** you people!’
Karan: They will be like: ‘Dude, you are too Punjabi to be a vampire’.
Rithvik: Or they will tell me: ‘You are too Sindhi to be a werewolf!’
Shweta: Karan, how does one play a vampire?
Karan: Be malnutritioned and suck blood… that’s about it!
Malancha: So what do you use instead of blood?
Rithvik: He uses blood!
Karan: I am a method actor (laughs). You want me to try? I don’t have fangs here! There is obviously prosthetics… dentures… blood. I had to lose a lot of weight for this show because if you have seen me in Gumrah (the popular youth show on Channel V that’s hosted by him), I was like (gestures to show he was heavier) and then I had to send my mom away for a couple of months so I could get lankier.
Disha Banerjee (first year, Shri Shikshayatan College and a Karan Kundra fan): Karan, you just mentioned Gumrah and I’ve always been a very big fan of that show.
Karan: Me too! (Smiles)
Disha: What made you take up a show like Gumrah?
Karan: I strongly believe that I don’t take up shows or projects… it is these projects that take me. When they were planning Gumrah, they wanted a youth connect, they wanted someone who is not preachy. When I talk to teenagers, it is not like I am an uncle… I am like a friend… and I talk nonsense as well! That is why I must have been selected. At that point, I was not interested in doing daily soaps, but I wanted to remain on TV. It was a very small show and then it became something big.
Priyanka: Do you guys watch each other’s work? Is there a sense of competition there?
Rithvik: Of course I have seen Karan’s work… we are friends, by the way.
Karan: I’ve known Chetna for five years and Rithvik for two-three years now. I have seen his dancing… he is very good… and I have seen Pavitra Rishta (on Zee TV where Rithvik played Arjun) also.
Rithvik: I don’t think there is a sense of competition. But healthy competition is always good to get to know where we are going wrong.
Karan: It’s no fun without competition. The only problem I have with Rithvik is he doesn’t drink and Chetna doesn’t eat non-veg. It’s such a pain!
Rithvik: I will start drinking from tomorrow!
Karan: But I do everything, I drink, I eat… I am the best out of them.
Priyanka: Chetna, who do you find hotter… the werewolf or the vampire?
Karan: See, this is where you induce competition!
Chetna: For me, both have their different places. I can’t choose one. Priyanka: What is it about Rithvik and Karan that their fans don’t know and you discovered while shooting with them?
Karan: He and I have been shooting together… I will tell you three things about him.
Rithvik: I will tell you five things about him. He is too Punjabi to be a vampire…
Karan: Werewolves don’t eat papad… he has papad everyday!
Rithvik: If there is a chance, he will literally have the blood (used on the show) with Tandoori Chicken! But he is really cool, yaar. He is a champ, honestly. People know Karan Kundra as the teenage sensation that people listen to. If you know him in real life, you don’t want to listen to him at all! (Karan looks at Rithvik and goes ‘Sshhhh’)
Karan: Actually, Rithvik and I are opposites. I like how driven he is and I am totally laidback. He is very serious about so many things in life and I am like… blah, you know.
Rithvik: That keeps us going… hold each other and walk.
Priyanka: There’s a palpable bromance vibe that we are getting here.
Karan: Yeah! We are crushing on each other. We are very dedicated to each other!
Malancha: What were your college days like?
Karan: I was the rockstar in college. Because till grade XII, I was 107-108kg.
Rithvik: Dude… 113 (kg), bro (points to himself). Somewhere we are together.
Karan: Once in college, I was like: ‘I have to rock it’. And I lost weight… I was really cool.
Rithvik: I was 113kg till my (class) XII. The whole process of me wanting to become an actor started when I got into college because if you’ve seen the kind of energy ball that I am, I wanted to do each and every thing at the same time. So suddenly within a span of a year-and-a-half, my friends and I became ‘the thing’ in college. So, college life was fun, yaar. And now, it’s even more fun because people look up to you… ‘That was the guy we were in college with’.
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
 |
Based on the young-adult book series of the same name by L.J. Smith, The Vampire Diaries is set in the fictional town of Mystic Falls where college girl Elena Gilbert finds herself drawn to the Salvatore brothers, resulting in a love triangle. But there’s a problem — Stefan and Damon Salvatore are both vampires!
A fave watch of teens and tweens, The Vampire Diaries is currently in its sixth season and has received a large number of awards. And Ian Somerhalder, who plays Damon, is one of the hottest men ever on television.
