“Alia’s hit me a lot of times,” complains Varun as Alia poses prettily for the t2 camera

Oh, t2! I read you guys in the morning only. You had Maria Sharapova on the cover,” winked Varun Dhawan as he entered the t2 office on Tuesday afternoon. “That’s me on the cover of t2!” screamed Alia Bhatt as she spotted herself, with Arjun Kapoor, in an April edition of t2 when the two had come to our office to promote 2 States. Over the next half hour, Varun and Alia — or Humpty and Kavya — the stars of July 11 release Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, spoke about their film, their chemistry, their fights and their friendship.

Pssssst: Alia was kicked to find herself on t2’s list of the Top 10 most-followed Indian celebrities on Instagram. “Wow, that’s insane!” she dimpled, holding up the t2 cover. “There’s Sonam (Kapoor), PC (Priyanka Chopra) and me,” she smiled. “Yeah, I’ve just joined Instagram, otherwise…” laughed Varun. His reward: A playful slap on the cheek from Alia!

Over to Humpty and his dulhania…

Priyanka Roy: Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania seems like this really mad ride. Was shooting for the film as much fun as it seems from the promos?

Varun Dhawan: It was so much fun! Almost everyone working on this film is very young… some 16 to 17 people are debuting with this film. Shashank (Khaitan), our director, is from a theatre background. So a lot of actors on this film are from theatre… there’s Ashutosh Rana, there’s this lady playing her (Alia’s) daadi who is this really old theatre artiste from Chandigarh…. I probably spent more time with the actors playing her family than she did… and they all kept slapping me! I think I have been slapped 22 times in this film! (Laughs) So all these theatre actors really improvised on me (laughs out loud).

Alia Bhatt: Welcome to the world of Humpty!

Karo Christine Kumar: So what was the silliest thing you did on the sets of this film?

Varun: I can tell you this really weird thing that they made me do. They would obviously shoot with Alia first because they wanted her to go home early… she wasn’t keeping well and it was really cold in Chandigarh. So at four ’clock in the morning, I had a sequence where I had to climb a wall, harnessed to a rope… it was like getting a wedgie, a really bad wedgie (smiles). I was like: ‘Dude, I thought this was a Karan Johar film. There’s supposed to be glamour and fun… what the hell am I doing hanging from a wall at four in the morning?’

Priyanka: You had glamour and fun in your first film Student of the Year, which was also a Karan Johar film… Varun: I guess the first two films (SOTY and Main Tera Hero) had that dose. This has been a good dose of real cinema, I would say.

Priyanka: Are you guys anything like Humpty or Kavya in real life?

Alia: I am, quite a bit. Kavya is this very fiery person and I can also be very moody. My moods are always in extremes… I am either really, really happy or very, very sad or very tired, like I am right now (smiles). Kavya is very active with her emotions and I am also like that.

Varun: I think Alia is very aggressive in real life. She’s hit me a lot of times… scratched, slapped, hit….

Alia: Varun has this dream that he wants a film role where he can beat me up!

Varun: I really do!

Alia: He’s always like: ‘Aliaaaaaaaa!’ (Gestures to show Varun ‘throttling’ her) It’s more like he wants to hit me when he’s happy.

Varun: I am like a proper Punjabi. When Punjabis are really happy, they do this (slaps Alia on her back)

Alia: But most of the time, he obviously can’t hit me, so I take his aspirations forward by hitting him. Like yesterday, I hit him in the car! I was tired and he was irritating me and I couldn’t take it… I caught him by his neck and just slapped him (laughs out loud).

“I don’t get hurt... I am double-jointed,” laughs Alia as Varun twists her arm

Varun: And I just caught her and did this! (Twists Alia’s right arm)

Alia: You know I am double-jointed right? So all this twisting will not work.

Varun: I don’t want to break any of her bones, but I don’t think you guys have ever seen Alia doing this (twists her arm nearly 180 degrees!)

Team t2 (in unison): Oh my god!

Alia: Don’t worry, I don’t get hurt… I am double-jointed. Varun (still twisting Alia’s arm): Presenting, Humpty Sharma ki dulhania, ladies and gentleman. You should see what she does with her legs… but you wouldn’t be able to print that! (Laughs out loud)

Karo: So what kind of a dulhania does Varun want?

Varun: I think I want today’s Indian woman — independent, ambitious, aggressive. I definitely want a girl who’s got a mind of her own, not someone who’s just subordinate to me. I want an equal. So Kavya is the right girl!

The Humpty Dumpty cupcakes (courtesy Mrs. Magpie) arrive and Varun and Alia can’t stop gushing and taking pictures on their iPhones.

Alia: Oh my god… these are so cute! You guys always feed me so much when I come here… but these have been the cutest!

Varun: This is insane… I have to take a lot of pictures of these! Thank you guys, seriously. I love them.

The two pose with their Humpty cupcakes for the next couple of minutes. Alia even takes a series of selfies, a Humpty cupcake in hand.

Alia: You guys are really creative with your food, ya!

Varun:You know how much mishti doi I have eaten over here since I landed last evening? But I don’t want to eat Humpty, please. They are so, so cute! Humpty meets Humpty!

Malancha Dasgupta: What’s your favourite scene from Humpty Sharma…?

Varun and Alia become Humpty and Kavya as they act out a scene from Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania

Varun: We’ll do it for you here! There’s this one scene where we both are jogging and I’m trying to hit on her, in Humpty’s style.

Varun: (He starts jogging in his seat!) Hello Kavyaji, bilkul zero figure lag rahi ho aaj!

Alia: (also jogs in her seat): Tu mental hai? Itni garmi mein leather jacket pehen ke aaya hai tu?

Varun: Arre, tu kitni judgemental hai, yaar? Fever hai mujhko, phir bhi ‘sorry’ bolne main aa gaya.

Alia: Tu line maarne aaya hai!

Varun: Ek question tha, tu aaj raat ko free hai?

Alia: Kyon?

Varun: Party hai.

Alia: Behen banake leke jaayega ya girlfriend banake?

Varun: Main kaafi open-minded hoon… jaise tu bolegi.

Alia: Oye, dedh mahine baad meri shaadi hai.

Varun: Oye, party itni der tak nahin chalne waali… aaj raat tak khatam ho jaayegi!

Team t2 roars in approval Alia: That’s the best reaction we’ve got so far for this scene!

Varun and Alia pore over earlier t2 editions featuring them

Pramita Ghosh: Saturday Saturday is a huge hit. Is it your favourite track from the film?

Varun: It’s my favourite track, for sure (reaches for a Humpty cupcake)…

Alia: Don’t eat his hand! Eat his cap (smiles)

Varun: … and also Samjhawan. When Humpty thinks he wants to party with Kavya, he is obviously gonna dream about a song he has heard. He is not some musician that he will make up a new song, and like normal people, when you all dream, you imagine a loved one, like a Marc Anthony song… like I love You Sang to Me. Same way, Humpty thinks of Saturday Saturday with her and honestly, in a very cool way.

Pramita: Which party track are you dancing to?

Alia: We are totally in love with the World Cup song. The Ole Ola one…

Varun: With Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez. I think Jennifer Lopez’s interlude is mad, dude, damn cool. I like the video also.

Pramita: What’s your ideal Saturday night out?

Alia: What did we do this Saturday?

Varun: This Saturday, we were performing in Sector 17 in Chandigarh, in front of 10,000 people with Badshah, the original rapper of Saturday Saturday.

Pramita: So are you following the World Cup?

Alia: I am rooting for Germany.

Varun: Brazil… I know you would love if I say Argentina…

Alia: So, you all are Messi fans?

Team t2: No!

Varun: After Brazil, it’s Colombia for me.

Alia: After Germany, it’s Brazil for me…

Varun: Colombia is the most talented team I think out there, Germany is the clinically gifted team. Brazil is like India in this World Cup. I think the crowd will kill them if they lose. I am telling you, the pressure...

Alia: Brazil does have pressure, but then I think their goalkeeper (Julio Cesar) is so cute!

Saionee Chakraborty: Who is your favourite player?

Varun: Neymar, Neymar. I think being so young, so much hope on him.

Alia: The goalkeeper is so cuuuuuute!

Varun: We were watching the match and she is like ‘How cutely he is saving the goal!’ (Laughs)

Alia: He is so adorably good-looking and the way he saved all those penalties… was so hot. And I was like ‘Wow’!

Varun: I don’t think he was thinking that…

Alia: He doesn’t know who I am!

Varun: Is he on Instagram? He will check you… (rolls his eyes)

Alia: He is so hot, I love him. I like Neymar’s hair!

Saionee: Alia, what do you think of Varun’s films and Varun, what do you think of Alia’s films?

Alia: I think Varun has evolved a lot as an actor. During SOTY, I would always see why he is a good actor… he is very earnest, endearing. He is always trying to make a scene look nice, which is good, but after sometime, it may take a toll on the genuineness of the scene. What I realised in Humpty Sharma... was he was no more thinking about the scene, he was literally becoming like the character… he was thinking like Humpty, he was never thinking like Varun. So many times while we would be doing our scene, we would forget that we were Alia-Varun because the way Humpty and Kavya are is very much like we both are, it’s a love-hate relationship and it’s like when Varun and I are in the room, people say we look like brother and sister. (Pauses) Okay, that’s a very strange thing to say! My stylist once told me, ‘How long have you known Varun for?’ I said, ‘Three years’. She said, ‘You look like you know each other for a lifetime’. And that’s how we are, and that’s how Humpty and Kavya also are. We’d forget that the camera is rolling and sometimes, even after ‘cut’ was called, we’d still be talking in that same Kavya-Humpty tone. I never really thought that it would come to a stage where so early in our careers, we would do a film like this, where both of us and both of our energies and chemistry would make a film work.

Saionee: Did you go and see Main Tera Hero?

Alia: Ya, I went to the theatre and watched it! Unlike him (points at Varun), he didn’t go see Highway in the theatre!

Varun: I saw Highway earlier… how much more publicity you want? (Feeds Alia some cupcake and the t2 cameras suddenly go click-click-click catching the two off guard before they burst into laughter!)

Alia: I was promoting 2 States and I was exhausted and I landed and first thing, I saw Main Tera Hero in the theatre, with my own money, I paid! He didn’t even get me a ticket!

Varun: No…

Alia: What no? You’re proud of it?!

Varun: You were not there only…

Alia: And he was very upset I was not there during the screening…

Varun: I was not very upset! I was okay… (makes a face)

Alia: You were sad…

Varun: I was not sad, you’re mad or what?

Alia: Okay, so you were like just messing with me then?!

Jyotica Ramchandani: Alia, what’s Kavya’s style sensibility?

Alia: There’s a line in Saturday, Saturday… Sarojini ke kapde pehen ke jaati madam disco… so Kavya will probably pick up clothes from Sarojini (Nagar, in Delhi). Her dream is to get married in a designer lehnga, that’s all. Otherwise all her clothes are very local, it’s all from the market, but she has a knack of putting things together. So our stylist Archana, she had a really cool idea that we’ll do a patiala (salwar), but we’ll do a printed patiala. So there’s a patiala that has like an Archie-Veronica-Betty print on it, which is really, really cool. Then you wear that with a denim shirt. There are a lot of mojris, different kinds of bags, a lot of dupattas, mainly tie-dye. It’s very local but at the same time very young and fresh.

Jyotica: Varun, what’s your fashion motto?

Alia: Tribal! (Laughs)

Varun: (Grins) It’s true, but! Priyanka: That tribal tattoo in Saturday Saturday, is it for real?

Varun: No, but I’m going to get something done for ABCD 2, which will be permanent. I think my fashion has to do a lot with my state of mind. If I get up in probably a little rougher mood, I’ll wear something darker, then if I start feeling good, I put on a shirt and jeans.

Jyotica: We’ve never seen you repeat any of your jeans!

Varun: I love jeans and I wear them a lot. In fact, in Humpty..., I have repeated them, in the whole film I’ve worn like two pairs of jeans because he obviously can’t afford more. You’ll see me in a lot of stuff that I don’t wear in real life, like kurtas and shirts.

Priyankar Patra (student of Asutosh College, t2 reader and an Alia fan): Of all your co-stars so far — Sidharth Malhotra, Arjun Kapoor, Randeep Hooda and Varun — who would you not mind having a scene with in real life?

Alia: (Assertively) Not Randeep! (Thinks while biting into a cupcake) I don’t know, ya, I’ve never thought of it…

CLICK CLICK: Alia and Varun pose for a series of selfies with Humpty cupcakes (from Mrs. Magpie).(Above) Varun’s version of the cupcake that he customised during the chat!

Priyanka: Say Varun!

Varun: No, no, no…!

Alia: No, Varun is good as my friend.

Saionee: Varun, one heroine you dream of romancing…

Varun: Preity Zinta… I think, she’s very cute!

Saionee: And Alia, you?

Varun: Amitabh Bachchan?

Alia: I’ve been a Shah Rukh (Khan) fan since I was little….