During the 2017 production of the film Simran, Hansal worked alongside Kangana. In a recent interview, director Hansal Mehta talked about Kangana Ranaut and detailed his experiences working with the actress. Hansal, referring to the actress, said that dealing with her was a “major mistake” for him despite her “great famous status.”
Kangana Ranaut’s film Simran was only loosely inspired by the actual story of bank robber Sandeep Kaur, who committed her actions due to gambling losses.
Hansal has already expressed his willingness to withdraw from the 2017 picture. After Hansal’s resignation from the project, Simran’s writer Apurva Asrani said in interviews that Kangana had undertaken and continued to direct the film. At one point, she had even referred to him as a “spineless coward.”
Hansal was asked in a recent interview with Mashable India whether Kangana had taken over Simran’s editing duties. Hansal said, “Edit nahi takeover kia usne, to be fair to her, but edit takes over karne ke liye kuch tha nahi since it was usne who shot the content. We could only utilize the video that she had captured). She is a very excellent actress, an outstanding actor, and a genuinely marvelous performer, but I feel she has artificially limited her career by creating films about herself. You need not transform every character into the version of yourself you like to believe you are.”
Hansal then addressed Kangana’s performance of the song She’s On Fire from the film Dhaakad. She said, “Abhi kuch gaana aaya uska… (Recently, she had a song titled…) she is a fiery woman… when you say such things, you are ultimately referring to yourself. You are aware that these are self-imposed objectives, and you have included them.
Even if I want to criticize her choices, I lack the authority to do so. Even now, she is a massive star, and I continue to feel she is a brilliant actress; nevertheless, when I worked with her, we did not get along. Cooperating with her was a catastrophic mistake of judgment.
Hansal is a well-known director who has made films such as Shahid and Citylights and the critically acclaimed web series Scam 1992. The book Behind the Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison by Jigna Vora inspired his upcoming Netflix web series, Scoop.