Actor Kanikka Kapur, who played Karan Deol’s love interest Nishaat in Batwara 1947, opened up about her experience of working on the Partition drama in an exclusive interview with India TV. From preparing for the Punjabi dialect to sharing screen space with Karan Deol, the actor spoke about the challenges that came with her role and why the film remains special to her. She also spoke about the film’s mediocre box office performance.
Kanikka Kapur on Batwara 1947 box office numbers
Batwara 1947 was released on August 14. The film clashed with Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan 2 at the box office. While Sunny Deol’s film earned Rs 38.80 crore, Awarapan 2 minted over Rs 150 crore in India.
Speaking about the box office performance of Batwara 1947, and whether numbers matter to her, Kanikka said, “Of course, if a film does well number-wise, it’s a big win for any project and the people associated with it. But I always pick a character and a story. And this was a very emotional thing for me because of my grandparents. So, I am really proud to be a part of this project. Of course, numbers help, but I feel like the people who have seen the film loved the film. Probably not a lot of people came to see the film because many films have already been made on Partition. So of course numbers do matter in the long run, but I am really happy.”
Batwara 1947, directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and starring Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta and Shabana Azmi, is set against the backdrop of Partition. The film is produced by Aamir Khan. For Kanikka, being part of the project was not just about the names attached to it. She said the emotional connection to the story, especially because of her grandparents, was a major reason she felt proud to be part of the film.
Watch India TV’s exclusive interaction with Kanikka Kapur here:
Kanikka Kapur on Rajkumar Santoshi’s strict instructions on Batwara sets
The actor also spoke about the process of playing Nishaat and the toughest part of preparing for the role. When asked about the most challenging part of playing Nishaat, Kanikka said, “I feel like probably the dialect of Punjabi. We both got training, Karan [Deol] and I, but Raj sir [Rajkumar Santoshi] said on set itself, ‘Don’t use so much Punjabi because we are making this movie for the whole of India; if you speak such authentic Punjabi, people might not understand it, and we want people to relate to you and connect with the film’.”
She added, “So I used very little Punjabi – mostly where I am talking to my brother in the film. With Karan, I am mostly speaking in Hindi. So then I felt like all our hard work was wasted! He was like, ‘No, we are making a movie for the masses in Hindi.’ But we trained; we had a dialect coach to help us train for that, though it wasn’t used much.”
When Aamir Khan walked in during Kanikka’s Batwara auditions
Kanikka also recalled what happened during her audition for the film. She admitted that she knew some details about the project but did not initially know the full scale of the film. She also told us that Aamir Khan walked in during her audition.
We asked Kanikka whether she knew about the scale of the film. She told us, “I didn’t know that much, but a little bit. Because Rajkumar Santoshi sir was directing, knowing just that is a big deal. So I knew that much. I knew that Karan Deol was opposite me. But after that, the next screen test happened at Aamir Khan sir’s office. So then he [Aamir Khan] came, he watched for a little while in the middle of my audition. I could see him – meaning, while I was doing my audition, I could see him come from the corner of my eye, watch me, talk a bit, and leave. And later, when I was locked, they told me that he said to Raj sir, ‘Who is this girl? She is good, she is good.’ He said that and left.”
The actor was then asked whether she found it difficult to stay in character after noticing Aamir Khan during the audition. She replied, “I wanted to look at him so badly and go say, ‘Hello sir!’ And then I felt, ‘No, I have to crack the audition, so stay in your character.’ So that was a conflict happening in my head, but I stayed in my character.”
When asked if she panicked after spotting Aamir, Kanikka said, “I didn’t panic, I was excited [laughter], but I didn’t break character.”
During a Rapid Fire segment, we asked Kanikka to share three words for Aamir Khan without much thinking. She called him a “method actor”, “cute” and “extremely intelligent”.
Stay tuned to know Kanikka Kapur’s take on her Batwara 1947 poster that people thought was of Kiara Advani.
Also read:
