Summary
- Ranbir Kapoor has spoken with rare candour about the weight of playing Lord Rama in the most ambitious Indian film production in recent memory, admitting that when the role was first offered to him, his immediate response was fear rather than excitement.
- Speaking on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday alongside co-star Yash, director Nitesh Tiwari and producer Namit Malhotra, Kapoor was asked to reflect on what it meant to take on a role of this magnitude.
- “I remember when the film was first offered to me, there was so much of fear, so much of doubt.
Ranbir Kapoor has spoken with rare candour about the weight of playing Lord Rama in the most ambitious Indian film production in recent memory, admitting that when the role was first offered to him, his immediate response was fear rather than excitement.
Speaking on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday alongside co-star Yash, director Nitesh Tiwari and producer Namit Malhotra, Kapoor was asked to reflect on what it meant to take on a role of this magnitude. His answer was unexpectedly personal.
“I remember when the film was first offered to me, there was so much of fear, so much of doubt. Will I be able to do this, am I capable enough?” he said. “But I think that doubt changed into gratitude very early on. I think it was a blessing, an opportunity of a lifetime, and a moral responsibility.”
What made the role feel so daunting, he explained, was not simply the scale of the film but the depth of the cultural and spiritual responsibility it carried. Lord Rama is not a fictional character for the hundreds of millions of people who hold him sacred. He is a living presence in the faith and moral imagination of a civilisation stretching back millennia.
“The Ramayana is ingrained in our subconscious,” Kapoor said. “Lord Rama is the conscience keeper of millions of people around the world for generations, for more than 4,000 years. He is somebody who embodies the triumph of the human spirit in times of adversities. He stands for courage, compassion, forgiveness, righteousness, and just to have the opportunity to represent that is very daunting.”
What helped him move through that initial paralysis, he said, was a shift in his approach from technical preparation to something more spiritual. “Very early on, I understood that it just requires a lot of faith, a lot of belief, a lot of truthfulness, and noble intentions. Our entire cast and crew had one noble intention, and that is to tell the story as authentically as we can.”
His co-star Yash, who plays the antagonist Ravana, used his moment on the panel to defend Kapoor’s casting, praising both his humility and his dedication and noting that no actor can truly claim to embody a deity. He called Kapoor a fabulous actor who had worked hard for the role, pushing back on any lingering doubt about whether he was the right choice.
The panel also brought an unexpected development. The Ramayana trailer, which had been scheduled for a global unveiling at Comic-Con, was postponed just hours before its planned launch. Producer Namit Malhotra confirmed the delay, saying the trailer would be released worldwide at a later date. He described the film as a moment of great pride for Indian cinema, one that would introduce the richness of Indian culture and storytelling to global audiences in the way major Hollywood productions do for their own traditions.
Ramayana Part One is scheduled for a theatrical release in November.
