Actors Rajeev Ravindranathan and Rahul Kumar talk to HT City and recall their memories from the shoot of the iconic film 3 Idiots.
At just 15 years old, Rahul Kumar landed his role in Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, but back then, he had little understanding of what he was doing or saying. Looking back now, Kumar, who eventually chose to pursue acting full-time, reflects on how playing Millimetre in the film dramatically changed the course of his life.
“I was six when I was selected to act in Vishal Bhardwaj’s The Blue Umbrella. Then he required a young boy for Omkara, I did that too. For 3 Idiots, they had auditioned about 800 kids. I got a call to audition when I was at a wedding in Uttarakhand. I came to Mumbai, gave it, a look test followed. Then I joined the shoot in Bangalore,” he tells us.
Kumar says he was pampered a lot on set, as he was the youngest member. Calling Aamir a prankster, he reveals, “R Madhavan sir, Sharman (Joshi) sir and Raju (Rajkumar Hirani, director) sir ne kaafi support kiya mujhe uss time pe. We still talk. Raju sir is like my best friend. Whenever I have any doubts about work, I call him right away, and he is kind enough to reply each time,” adding, “What I also can’t forget is when Aamir sir introduced me to Kareena (Kapoor Khan) ma’am on set, and made her remember I was there in Omkara, adding ki ‘Yeh bahut bada ho gaya hai’, and convinced her that I had got married. It took me some time to convince Kareena that he was lying!”
In fact, Kumar says there was another prank, “Aamir sir would ask me who is my favourite heroine, I would say ‘everyone is nice’ Then he would ask ‘Kareena kaisi lagti hai?’ I would say ‘achhi lagti hain’ Then he would ask ‘Rani Mukerji kaisi lagti hain?’ I replied ‘zyaada khaas nahi lagti’ He would pick up the phone and say ‘Hello Rani, mere set pe ek actor hai, usse tum pasand nahi ho, yeh lo baat karo’, and I would run away! He was behaving like a child on set too, much like his character in the film. He would play cricket, call people randomly from the college crowd to play chess with him between shots.”
Rajeev Ravindranathan was initially cast in one of the lead roles in 3 Idiots, but as the project progressed, the casting took a turn. He ultimately portrayed a bully who ragged the three main characters—Farhan Qureshi, Rancho, and Raju Rastogi—on their first day of college. The infamous mutravisarjan scene left audiences in stitches when the film was released, though it sparked considerable debate over the portrayal of ragging.
“It was the most stunning filmmaking experience of my career. The script given to us for that entire scene was more or less just a description, with a resolution. So what was written was things like ‘Villain confronts Aamir, Aamir gets the better of him’ That was fixed, but the rest of it didn’t exist on paper. I was blocked for a four day shoot, 6pm to 6am,” he recalls.
Upon entering the set, he found out that everything was being done on the spot, “There was no dialogue. Raju said ‘today there will be no shooting’ He had also got his cameraman to practice the scene once. We improvised that scene on the first night, till 2-3 in the morning. Aamir, Madhavan and Sharman were there. I realised the power of Raju Hirani. I can’t think of too many filmmakers who are able to assemble the entire cast to improvise. The next evening, the scene was ready. Bits and pieces had been taken from what we did. I have never been in such a process after that.”
He says out of the entire cast, the person he is in touch with the most is Madhavan, with whom he went on to work in the film Rocketry: The Nambi Effect as well, “He was really there for me, and I hope to work with him again in the near future.”
