Mr And Mrs Mahi Director Sharan Sharma Reveals Lagaan As Inspiration Behind Janhvi Kapoor Starrer

Sharan Sharma's directorial Mr & Mrs Mahi, starring Janhvi Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao, hit the big screens on May 31. It a human drama set against the backdrop of cricket. The movie features Janhvi and Rajkummar as the titular couple -- Mahendra, a former cricketer, and Mahima, who is a doctor. After Mahendra spots the cricketing talent in his wife, he encourages her to chase her dream and becomes her coach.

Sharan revealed how he was inspired to make his movie, with cricket at the centre of the storyline.

How Aamir Khan's Lagaan inspired Mr & Mrs Mahi

Sharan shared that people watch cricket at home throughout the year and the idea to make a movie on the sport was to tell a story. He also heaped praise on Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan.

"There’s so much cricket to watch in general, so I’m not going to a theatre to watch cricket, I go there to watch a story. We didn’t want to show the sport like how we see it on TV... We shot it like a scene, the idea was to show the drama of the scene. This was done brilliantly in Lagaan. In Lagaan, you were following the story, you were not sitting and watching the match. Our inspiration from Lagaan in terms of coverage, and the focus was on storytelling, that’s what we were trying to take,” the director told PTI.

Sharan Sharma says he is focussed on detailing

Sharan Sharma made his filmmaking debut with Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020), starring Janhvi Kapoor. He said he was very particular about each and every detail related to cricket in the movie.

"If I’m getting a chance to make a film which has cricket in it, I would want to give my 5,000 percent, otherwise I wouldn’t be happy. We took the hard route, I’m not too bothered by delays, nobody remembers how much time you took to make a film,” added the director.

(With PTI inputs)