Wow! Shakun Batra directs Jason Statham’s fiancée model Rosie Huntington!
Talking about his ad campaign with Rosie, Shakun tells us, “I had earlier shot for Nirav Modi before with Priyanka Chopra and Sidharth Malhotra and we had a great time working together. Nirav told me he had an international campaign with Rosie and Priyanka and he asked me if I would shoot that. I was really excited because I thought it was a privilege. We flew to New York. Our bad luck was we had one of those massive snow storms those days so we had to shoot indoors but thankfully the shoot turned out great.”
Shakun adds that Rosie was wonderful to shoot with. “I thought she would be a diva but she was absolutely fantastic! She was chatting with us and said that she doesn’t like shooting films because they take too long and she’s done two action films but she hates action. Rosie said she’s happy shooting an ad which takes two-three hours to shoot. We completed it in three hours. Half a day Rosie shot for the print or photo campaign with world-famous fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, and the remaining half she shot for the video campaign with me. Patrick today is probably counted among the top five photographers of the world.”
Shakun says that regarding the concept Nirav was very clear about what he wanted. “The scripts of both Priyanka and Rosie’s ad campaigns have been written by Ayesha Devitre (who has also written Kapoor & Sons with Shakun). He’s very collaborative and gave us some ideas he had. For Priyanka he thought of his daughter playing with the little bracelet and thought he should make it for women also and that’s why in the ad we are connecting Priyanka to a little girl. Similarly for Rosie, the way Nirav was describing his jewelry to me I really thought it’s like a piece of art where a lot of work goes into it, we decided to compare it to a work of art. People talk about how you can’t touch art but what if art touches you? That’s the concept of Rosie’s ad.”
Unlike many Hollywood stars Rosie does not know too much about Bollywood. “She knew a little bit but Rosie is not a big movie person. She loves her fashion world. I have to say, that she was quite down-to-earth for someone as famous as her. She’s very happy and liked talking about her family, fashion life. Rosie is someone very lucid and connectable – someone I could connect with and not like a diva, throwing tantrums. It wasn’t like that at all.”
Shakun shot with Priyanka Chopra also for the same jewelry brand in New York again. How’s she to shoot with? “She’s amazing! Priyanka’s energy is fabulous. She’s relentless like I feel I can get tired but she she’s always brimming with energy. While I shot the ad with her and Sidharth in India, the one solo we shot in New York. With PC it’s always like an adrenalin rush. She’s got great ideas, always throwing interesting things at you so I just love her energy for that. Priyanka is a lot of fun and it was good catching up with her, in what she calls her city – New York.”
