Ranbir Kapoor worked as an Assistant Director on father Rishi Kapoor’s 1999 directorial debut Aa Ab Laut Chalein, starring Akshaye Khanna and Aishwarya Rai.
Ranbir Kapoor started his film career as an assistant director. Before working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali on Black (2005), he was assisting his late father and legendary actor Rishi Kapoor on the latter’s 1999 directorial debut, Aa Ab Laut Chalein, a romantic drama starring Akshaye Khanna and Aishwarya Rai. On Nikhil Kamath’s podcast People by WTF, Ranbir confessed that his father was a “terrific actor, but not that good a director.”
What Ranbir said
“I did a little bit of assisting on a film called Aa Ab Laut Chalein, which didn’t work. My father directed that film. I realised that my father is a terrific actor, but he’s not that good a director because he doesn’t have a temperament. He’s short-tempered,” Ranbir said.
“It’s very hard. It’s a selfless job (to be) a good director because you’re doing everyone’s job, but giving them the credit for it. You are the boss on set, and any decision is your decision. Like they’ll come to you, even for a colour or lensing or lighting or performance, everything’s upto you. So it’s kind of you’re playing God in a way. So anyway, my father wasn’t cut out for that,” he added.
When Akshaye said Rishi has ‘attitude problem’
When Akshaye appeared on the chat show Rendezvous with Simi Garewal back in the early 2000s, Simi told him that her Mera Naam Joker and Karz co-star Rishi Kapoor had said that Akshaye has an attitude problem after directing him in Aa Ab Laut Chalein. However, Akshaye responded, “So does he (laughs).” When probed further by the host and veteran actor, Akshaye merely said, “Oh yeah, he has a major attitude problem. But he is such a great guy and I loved working with him, the whole family, they are such wonderful people.”
Aa Ab Laut Chalein was the final film Rishi Kapoor directed, which was made under his late father and legendary actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor’s production house RK Studios.
Meanwhile, Ranbir will be next seen in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana adaptation and Love & War