Ekta Kapoor knew 'gaaliyaan padne waali hai' on Covid VS Naagin theme, but she's ready to be trolled
India Today
In a media interaction, Ekta Kapoor said that she knew she would be trolled for the theme of Naagin 6 being compared to Covid-19 pandemic. However, she is ready to face all that criticism.
Naagin 6 is all set to premiere on February 12. Producer Ekta Kapoor is busy promoting the show these days, which stars Tejasswi Prakash and Simba Nagpal in the lead roles. Ahead of the show's release, Ekta got into a media interaction where she talked about getting trolled for the theme of this season which is based on an epidemic. She said that she was ready to face criticism for portraying Naagin 6 very similar to Covid-19. Ekta Kapoor also spoke about casting Tejasswi Prakash and how people linked her Bigg Boss 15 win with Naagin 6.
Ekta Kapoor said that she is not under any pressure because the last two seasons did not do well on the TRP charts. She said, "I feel after doing the six seasons right now there is comparatively less amount of pressure. The last two seasons have not done so well, though if you see the weekend numbers it still much better than a lot of other shows. Because the weekend slot is itself down, also Naagin 4 and 5 did not get that great numbers, in fact, I don't have pressure working on season 6. I am not taking that extra pressure and now I am actually doing what I want. I don't have to follow any precedence that the last two seasons were such a big hit that this time it has to be a bigger hit."
About choosing the pandemic as the theme of the show, Ekta said, "When my friend narrated me this concept, she told me you should do this and corona is not just about the disease. It is a mind changing thing. She told me I am no longer dealing with relatable topics in the country. I actually knew at that point ke mujhe gaaliyaan padne waali hai because agar yehi kaam koi really celebrated maker karta, things would have been different. Naagin is out an out mass, commercial pulp show and there will be criticism and I am fine with it because I am not calling it corona. I want to show what people went through in the last 2 years."
Talking about if she is ready to face the trolls, Ekta said, "I knew very well and I was sure that I will get trolled. I was ready for it. In west if you see they make shows out of real incidents and they work well. Like Titanic came out of a real incident. The pandemic is something that the US based OTT channel will do it. We are witnessing history and we all have changed in the last two years and Naagin also had to change. I made one during the pandemic and I felt I'd lost the zest. I personally felt this time will also be the same. I definitely felt there was something new in the first Naagin which was missing when I was writing a lot of the stuff later. I thought it's not just me the world has changed a lot and to deal with the pandemic in a space where the Naagin takes a revenge."
The producer added, "I still remember everyone's face when I read it and they said it is terribly ridiculous but everyone felt it can either really work or can be really bad. I honestly believed that it was the time for me to do something that shakes the basics of the show otherwise it is always the personal revenge saga. How many times I can show the same thing."
Ekta Kapoor said that the pandemic has affected everyone's life. "There is serious amount of relativity and I am trying to deal it with a lot of empathy. We all have faced a lot of trauma if we can in someone way reflect some of that trauma in the show, it has been problematic. The rich has become richer and the poor have become poorer and its nobody's fault. We thought it was a time to deal with in our own way of course it will be very entertaining. I don't want to loose the empathy part. The amount of relativity I have with my staff now. I would never spend time talking to them but the last two years we were stuck in the same house and we got to know each other better. We all have changed so much."
When Tejasswi Prakash was announced the winner of Bigg Boss 15, it was speculated that she won the show just because she was roped in as a lead for Naagin 6. Reacting to that, Ekta said, "I wanted someone very vivacious but innocence. The character that we wanted Tejasswi to play was reluctant hero. I saw Tejasswi in the show and we spoke to her manager and signed her who assured us that she will be onboard. Before the show, I had seen her. I had liked her so much though I don't see too much of Bigg Boss. But a lot of my friends do. Also, there are clippings of Bigg Boss all over the Instagram and you end up watching it. I feel she is a very attractive young girl. There's something about her eyes and I just had to cast her. Honestly, I've never met her except this show and now when I gave her a narration now. I knew she would win. I felt there was some kind of luck that went to her. More than that I've done nothing. I don't think I've the power to tell a channel that I want this girl as my next Naagin. I found her pretty, she clearly had a lot of love from the audience and I connected to her when I saw her and that's all that made her win. Poor girl she has to constantly defend herself."
