Hansal Mehta: Kareena Kapoor Khan has given a defining performance

Kareena Kapoor Khan

Within nine months of 2023, Hansal Mehta has rolled out a hostage drama in Faraaz, the acclaimed Scoop, and five episodes of Scam 2003: The Telgi Story. And he is in no mood to stop. The filmmaker is gearing up for the 67th BFI London Film Festival where his noir thriller, The Buckingham Murders, will be premièred next month.

Hansal Mehta

The Kareena Kapoor Khan-led cop drama is among the three Indian films to be screened at the coveted festival, and Mehta couldn't be prouder. "The festival has an amazing line-up, including David Fincher's [The Killer] and Martin Scorsese's [Killers of the Flower Moon]. I am looking forward to showing my film to the audience there. The festival programmers have loved it," he beams. The Buckingham Murders marks his first collaboration with Kapoor, who also turns producer with the project. Mehta is full of praise for his leading lady, as he says,

"Kareena has given a defining performance." That's not hard to believe. After all, the director has displayed a knack for extracting career-best performances from his actors - be it Rajkummar Rao in Shahid (2013), or Pratik Gandhi in his breakout series, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020). What makes him an actor's director? For Mehta, who is now deep in prep for Gandhi, it boils down to a simple answer - love. "I don't analyse [the reason]. In London, when I was meeting a lot of actors for Gandhi, the only thing I told them was that I love actors. Maybe that's what builds the relationship between me and them."