QUEEN'tessential in essence and inspiration

She fell in love with Kannada movies thanks to her film Govindaya Namah and its most popular tune Pyarge Agbittaite. Such was the popularity of her role in it, that she is still referred to as the Pyarge Aagbittaite girl. Later, she followed it with back-to-back commercial successes including Bachchan, Vaastu Prakara, Uppi 2, Aatagara, Killing Veerappan and the latest blockbuster Jessie. The lovely actress from Mumbai, Parul Yadav is flying high with a colourful quadrilingual remake of the Bollywood blockbuster Queen. While she portrays the role of Kangana Ranaut in the Kannada remake Butterfly, she has also ventured into production. She speaks exclusively with Bengaluru Chronicle about her dual role as actress and as one of the co-producers of the Queen remake in four languages, and more.

“When I first saw Queen, my first thought was that it was simply outstanding in every term and Kangana Ranaut undoubtedly gave a top notch performance. She is impeccable in it. But can such a film be remade? That was another thought that crossed my mind. Initially, it did seem difficult and when the remake venture came to me, I was thrilled and nervous too. When I decided to co-produce it along with a few others for a mega quadrilingual remake project, the excitement just got multipled four times over,” says Parul Yadav.

Multilingual versatile actor-turned-director Ramesh Aravind is directing the remake in all four languages — Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Parul Yadav plays the role of the protagonist in the Kannada version titled Butterfly while Kajal Aggarwal plays the female lead in Tamil. Tammannah in Telugu, and Manjima Mohan in Malayalam.

The actress-turned-producer says that it is her first ever remake venture. “In fact, during the initial days of the shoot, I faced some difficulties portraying the role, as it is completely opposite to what I am in real life — a modern girl who is born and brought up in Mumbai. Whereas portraying a girl from a small town like Gokarna, who has never been to a city and never flown abroad was quite a challenge to me. Eventually, workshops followed, and I started living in the character, and enjoying it. Hope, I have pulled it off,” Parul shares.

Being part of the production team along with being the lead actress, she had a great experience shooting in foreign locations, especially France, with temperatures dipping as low as 5 degree Celsius. “The best past was shooting simultaneously in two different remote locations in France. We actresses would bump into each other often, and it was fun. Insofar as the remake is concerned, Ramesh Aravind Sir is impressive as ever with some changes owing to the nativity. The core subject remains the same. The director has retained flavour, and though it is a remake, it’s made with a new freshness,” she says, adding that though all four actresses are portraying the lead role of Rani from Queen, each one has given her best, and now there will be five different Ranis including Kangana’s adding their own charm and elegance to the role.” The shoot of this mega quadrilingual remake is almost done, about 80 per cent, and the team is planning a mid-2018 release.