Rajeev Khandelwal: ‘Heartbeat’ is one subject which is very close to my Heart!

Rajeev Khandelwal who was recently seen in ZEE5’s short film Heartbeat got into a candid and interesting conversation with us at India Forums where he spoke to us about his experience shooting for Heartbeat, his production house, Marzi 2 and much more...

Talking about his experience shooting for ‘Heartbeat’, Rajeev said, “Well, shooting for it was fun actually. It was very interesting because when you work for a short film, it’s a different kind of fun because you complete the film in 2-3 days. Everything is very meticulously planned out, you can't shoot in excess, there’s a way of shooting. So it was very interesting, Anupriya is a very very good actor and we hit it off on day one only. It was fun and only 4-5 people were on the sets, it also was my own production, so even better.”

“I wanted to start the production house with something which appeals to me and excites me, that’s why my banner is called ‘Real Films’ and very slowly I’ll get into bigger productions. I relate to this story very well so I had to produce it,” he added. 

When he was asked about his take-away from the entire experience shooting for the short film, Rajeev shared a very personal incident. He shared, “My take away has been that yes there are two perspectives, I totally understand. I am a pro euthanaisa, I had a situation like this in my life, My mom was very unwell and she was on a ventilator. I even went to the medical head and I asked them that I know that euthanasia is not legal but I just wanted to get her away from all the troubles and pain that she was going through. The doctors also said that there was no way of getting her back. I was in the mind thinking that if euthanasia was in our country, I am sure our mom would also have said that Rajeev let’s do it and I would have done it for her. So the take away has been that I totally understand the perspective that the other one goes through. My dad was also there, so the call would have not been mine, it would have been my dad’s call if it was legal. It is your personal call, you will have to live that call, good, back or ugly.”

He added, “Heartbeat is one story, one subject which is really really close to my heart. 5-6 years back, I was going to be a part of a film, whose subject was Euthanasia. We even worked on it for 5-6 months but the film never took off. So that subject has been in my mind that if someday it happens then I would love to do it.”

Talking about which has been the closest character to his heart, he said, “I think closest would be Kabir Sharma of Reporters to an extent”

When asked about Marzi 2, he said, “I don’t know when Marzi 2 will come but yes, it has been planned ofcourse. But now because of the virus, I don’t know. But I think the first thing that I will shoot for if things pan out the way we want it to pan out, could be Marzi 2.”

Speaking about Haq Se season 2, he said, “No, Haq se season 2 is not happening for me, I am not a part of it. I do not know about whether the show is happening or not.”