Here's how The Romantics director Smriti Mundhra slyly persuaded 'shy' Aditya Chopra to be part of series

Smriti Mundhra, the director of The Romantics, revealed how she persuaded camera-shy producer Aditya Chopra to be part of the Netflix docu-series. In a new interview, Smriti said that it took a long time to convince Aditya calling the process 'a slow one'. (Also Read | As Aditya Chopra does a 'face reveal' after years in Netflix documentary, Karan Johar says ‘my best friend has a face’)

Smriti also said after starting the project, she was speaking to him on 'background to get the context on the story'. The director also said that she wanted to make sure she was interacting with the right people to understand 'all of the contours of the story'.

In an interview with DNA India, Smriti said, “I tried to convince him that while my crew and I were in Mumbai, we’ll film an interview for his personal archive. Of course, I had an ulterior motive in a way. He agreed to that. When we were editing the series, I started quietly editing him into the series with hopes that when I showed it to him eventually, he’d agree. It was a risk because a lot of work went into editing and if he had said no, I’d have to re-edit the whole series. The hope was that when he saw how vital his contribution was to this story, he would agree to it.”

She added, “Anyone who has worked in any capacity with Aditya Chopra would tell you that he has utmost fidelity to the creative integrity of any project. He is not going to compromise any project’s creative integrity. So, when he saw, just from a creative point of view, how important it was for him to be a part of this and how empty the series would feel without his perspective, that definitely helped."

As per Smriti, the aspect that really made the most difference was 'recognising that we worked so hard to create this tribute to his father, Yash Chopra, where so many people from their hearts about his legacy'. She added that for Aditya to not participate would be 'very odd'. Smriti said that it was out of that 'love and respect for his father that he finally agreed' to be part of The Romantics.

Helmed by Smriti, The Romantics celebrates the legacy of filmmaker Yash Chopra. It features 35 leading voices of the Hindi film industry and dives into the history of Bollywood through the lens of the Yash Raj Films' impact over the past 50 years in making Bollywood globally known. The series started streaming on February 14.