Coming off their smash hit Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva, Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor are perhaps Bollywood’s biggest power couple, both beloved stars in their own right who are only stronger when together. And with two sequels to Brahmāstra now set to release in the coming years, the two are set to soar higher and higher, even as the gossip mill questions whether the married couple will stay together.
So, what do the two love about each other most? Speaking with Esquire Middle East, the two were very gregarious about their admiration for each other as both people and performers.
“What I admire about Alia as an actor is that she’s extremely colorful. She’s got many, many shades as an actor.” Kapoor tells Esquire Middle East’s William Mullally.
Kapoor also highlighted how smart she is as a person.
“Alia is extremely intelligent. She has a quality of a writer. She can create dynamics within words while she’s performing. And her brain is so intelligent that she can computerize it, at the same time, be real and connected to the moment and do all of this effortlessly,” Kapoor continues.
Bhatt starts with a very practical compliment.
“He’s very punctual,” Bhatt says with a laugh.
In fact, working with Kapoor on Brahmāstra actually increased the love that she had for her husband.
“One of the things that I really admire about Ranbir is something that I also have learned through the process of working on Brahmāstra with him. It’s his service to his craft,” Bhatt says.“I don’t think there’s any better actor to work with.”
“Every filmmaker, every technician, everybody on a film crew will agree that there’s no better actor to work with than Ranbir. The way he prioritizes the film over everything else. You won’t even know Ranbir’s existence on a film set. He’s so quiet. And he’s so silent. And he surrenders so deeply to the vision and to the crew, that it almost feels like sometimes that you don’t even know if he’s really sitting over there, because that’s how silent he is.”
“But that’s how giving he is as an actor,” Alia Bhatt continues. “that’s one thing that I truly admire. He truly soldiers on. He can he’ll give everything from his time, sleep, energy, attention, and it’s like, for him the film, and the film’s vision is bigger than everything. And everything—all his needs, like he’ll go hours without eating food, and be like, it’s okay.”
“Thank you, that’s very sweet,” replies Kapoor.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” says Bhatt.
Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor on filming Brahmāstra
Bhatt also revealed that she keeps thinking back to the first day filming Brahmāstra, when she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed what they were going to accomplish together.
“The moment I keep going back to is day one of shoot after the first take. Ranbir and I literally did a high five to each other because it felt like such an achievement that we got one shot,” says Bhatt.
“It’s when we were walking out, holding hands, and you just pause, saying ‘ok’,” Bhatt says to Kapoor.
Read more on the Brahmāstra sequels here.