Rajesh Krishnan: ‘To me, they’re no different from SRK, Salman, Aamir’

Kriti Sanon, Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan in Crew

How do you bring three of Bollywood's biggest heroines on screen together? Get a solid story, and rope in a director who can pull it off.

Result: Rajesh Krishnan's Crew, starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon. But the director is wary of bracketing it as a female-centric movie. To him, it's a humorous story told well. He begins, "Nothing convinces harder than good humour. I don't have it in me to sell a movie as female-centric. I don't know what that genre is. Everyone wants to know the story, and a story like this is gender-agnostic. To me, Kareena, Tabu and Kriti are no different from Shah Rukh [Khan], Salman [Khan] and Aamir [Khan]. The story is about three underdogs."

Rajesh Krishnan

In this underdog story, three flight attendants, who have not been paid for months as the airline is on the verge of bankruptcy, devise their own means to make money. He gleefully says, "Three meek air-hostesses go from hum kya hi kar lenge to maloom hai, hum kya kar sakte hai?" But the director promptly points out that it's more than a crime film. At a time when there have been multiple instances of airline staff being treated disrespectfully by entitled passengers, he hopes Crew will make viewers rethink their behaviour before they get on their next flight. "They say namaste, wear a smile, and have to be nice to you. That doesn't mean they should be snapped at and asked, ‘Where is my alcohol?' I have been surrounded by so many sassy women, and they've raised me well. I don't take basic human dignity for granted. Here is a story of three mature people fighting [the odds] with their brains. These three women are done taking nonsense."

If Krishnan got a sharply written comedy, he also got actors who would elevate it further. Crew's trailer shines bright with the easy chemistry between Kapoor, Tabu and Sanon. "They have inherent chemistry. What united them was they all thought my jokes were funny. They understood the intent of the film. Each had their own devices and made the material on paper land. Sometimes, they would do a brilliant take, then at some point they would start laughing because it was so funny and spoil the take. In comedy, we do our best work when we don't take pressure, make some mistakes and don't take ourselves too seriously. So, I didn't interfere with their process. I would get the technical bits out of the way first and then do extensive readings of what they are to shoot that day."

The director considers himself lucky that he got immense support for the comedy - be it from actors Diljit Dosanjh and Kapil Sharma who agreed to play pivotal roles, or producers Anil Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor who pulled out all stops. "We shot on tarmacs that civilians haven't even seen - be it in Goa airport or Abu Dhabi airport. Anil Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor got us the necessary permissions. Once we were shooting in Goa, and a mob of 50 came to see Tabu, Kareena and Kriti. I almost panicked, but thankfully, our producers knew the on-ground challenges and had put the best people on the job."