Varun Dhawan talks about the 'Badri' in him

Every film, every character is a story unto itself. Varun Dhawan revealed his own little story before he took up Badrinath Ki Dulhania.

Speaking at the launch of the film's trailer today (2 February), the actor said, “It is strange that before I got this film, Kavish, a close friend, often called me Badri. In local lingo, ‘badri’ means brother. With a name like Badrinath, one would normally think the film is in Bhojpuri. My friends too thought the same. I never imagined that one day I would be playing a character called Badrinath Bansal.”

Dhawan said it was very difficult for him to play the character. "It was [director] Shashank Khaitan who changed me completely. He told me that when you come to office [work] just forget who you are. I can safely say Badrinath will always be a special character for me.”

Hindi cinema is now more open to unconventional romance dramas and complicated relationships, as we saw in Karan Johar’s Ae Dl Hai Mushkil (2016). So how difficult is it to keep a conventional romantic tale relevant? 

Khaitan said, "A great writer once said every story in this world is a love story. A Dangal is a love story between a father and a daughter. You just need to keep alive the main issue. My love story could be between two people, another  love story could be about a man’s desire to achieve a particular goal. As far as it is a good story, it will be relevant. Will a Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! be relevant today? Why not? If it’s made well and adapted to today’s sensibilities.”

But for how long will escapist romantic sagas survive? “Those films aren’t entirely away from reality," the director said. "I don’t do such films, but even today every boy still wants to fall in love. Once you see my film, you will realize it is pretty much what young boys in small towns do. A lot of the reactions [in the film] are pretty much similar to how people there react to each other. There is a certain intensity in the movie which comes through the same [love story] situation. A boy-meets-girls story will always be relevant. A great example is [Hollywood film] La La Land, which is doing great internationally. Who would have thought a musical would do well in 2017? It’s a simple story of boy meeting girl, and what happens in their lives. Musical is the genre which we identify from the 1960s and 1970s. It doesn’t matter what you use, but a [conventional] love story will always remain relevant.”

Badrinath Ki Dulhania follows Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014) which was successful at the box office. Khaitan has lined up a third film from the ‘dulhania’ franchise with Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan.

Badrinath Ki Dulhania is set to be released on 10 March.