‘Rajinikanth would be my first choice to play King Lear'

Award-winning director, screenwriter, producer and composer Vishal Bharadwaj has said that Rajinikanth would be his first choice for King Lear if he ever decided to adapt the Shakespeare play for the big screen. The filmmaker who was recently at the Brahmaputra Valley Film Festival says that before he made Haider, he had worked on the script of King Lear and visualised the actor in the lead role.

"Superstar will be my first choice, if and when I decide to make the film," adds Bharadwaj, who has also adapted Shakespeare's Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet into Maqbool, Omkara, and Haider.  On his choice of films, Vishal says, "Maqbool was an accident. I was looking for a story when I decided to make Omkara, an adaptation of Othello, and finally, there was pressure to make a third to make it a trilogy."
 
Interestingly, Haider, the third in the trilogy, was the most difficult for him. "I was under pressure to ensure that the film matches up to the first two films, and at the same time, I wanted to make a film in Kashmir against the backdrop of conflict," he says.
 
Next on his wishlist is a trilogy of Shakespeare's comedies, but there is nothing planned yet. "I am composing music for three films. I, along with many of my good friends, feel that I have neglected my role as a composer. So for the next year, I am going to concentrate only on music."
 
The director, who made his debut with the children's film, Makdee, laments that not many films are being made exclusively for children. "There is hardly any creative effort on the part of adults to make films for children. Even films made by the Children's Film Society of India (CFSI) are not commercially viable. This must change and we, as members of the society, must ensure that more such films are made, and children get to see these in cinema halls," he adds.