Exclusive! Potluck director Rajshree Ojha: I feel more comfortable in slice-of-life genre

Filmmaker Rajshree Ojha is famous for making films like the Sonam Kapoor starrer Aisha and the slice-of-life series Potluck. After the successful first season, the Indian director released Potluck Season 2, which gathered great responses from fans. 

In a candid chat with OTTplay, she spoke about her latest show, which stars Cyrus Sahukar, Ira Dubey, Harman Singha, Salonie Patel, Shikha Talsania and Siddhant Karnick. Meanwhile, Rajshree also revealed her upcoming projects and more. Excerpts:

Potluck season two is a light-hearted show packed with fun laughter emotions, and it's the continuation of the first part, the dynamic and chemistry of all the actors on the show seem as real as if they're actually family. What do you think makes them so natural?

Because most of them are like that. Cyrus is very natural. And all the actors somehow bring something to the table. For me, the characters are very, very today's characters, we somehow relate to all of them. We all have some people like Cyrus's character or Jatin's character. Somehow we all have that, you know, we all feel like they are, they are the actors are like us. Saloni, or Era, they all bring something to the table, they bring their own little nuances and their own thing. So I think that's what makes this show what it is, you know, and that's how you kind of identity, like, you know, a lot of people love Cyrus, and but science is so natural and fun, that, you know, he just brings this character, you know, to life that's

So, season two was already in your mind or is it because the chemistry between the cast made you and the writers go for a second part?

No, season two was always on my mind. The writers always want to write too many seasons. It's always good. It was just that it did well, and it was well received, that we got a green light to do the second season. And I think that's fantastic because this kind of show is very rarely seen on OTT.

Is it inspired by any real-life experiences that you have had or have known?

Everything is inspired by something that you know, no, I mean, you won't be a filmmaker or an artist. If you don't get inspired by something that happens in your life. It's not literally anybody's biopic. But yeah, situational. You must be knowing that family, someone in your family who's trying struggling with her space in the family works in she's a little older person, or she's retired or he's retired, and he's trying to find where do I belong? You may have someone in your family who's trying to find the balance between her new job that they missed out, on and kids or family, you may have a young woman who's trying to say, hey, you know what, I haven't had a relationship or friend, you may have a friend who may have had a relationship and is trying to say that you know what, I need to figure out my past relationship so that I can use jump into the next. So it's all at it you may know someone who's lost a job. And you're like, What the hell do I do now? So it's all part of your own journey. So yeah, I am inspired by my own people around me and the people around them. 

So the potluck is that almost all the characters in the show are important. How did you come across to cast them? And were there any auditions or you had some of them in mind already?

They already knew most of them. When potluck one happened, we already knew most of the actors. I knew. Cyrus and EDA are the easy cast because I already knew them. And, I always thought that would be perfect to play these characters. Harmon was also someone I am not I actually auditioned for Herman and Saloni. And they were fairly good together. So I couldn't think of anybody else and they were on Shikar was a lovely animator, and I thought she would be perfect. No brainer. I couldn't think of anybody else. So just ignore it when casting happens, and it happens so naturally, organically, that it just falls into these are the people that followed keto when she came into play primal causes itself was lovely, you know? I mean, I'm being very positive about it never turning up and down, you know, we all have, but we all came together to understand.

After 2002 with Badger, to films like Aisha in 2010 till now we have seen fairly, very less projects and your direction, any specific reason?

No, it's not about a specific reason. I just have some personal setbacks. You know, there was some personal stuff that was happening. I kept working, but it was not like the light projects that I had produced. So yeah, I kept wearing different hats. I feel like in that whole period, I developed a lot of scripts. I wrote a lot.

You've mostly directed light-hearted projects or family-driven films and shows, are you up for some proper romantic, or maybe even an action flick?

I would love to do an action film. I am in talks about an action film. And I would love to do that. Actually, it's a movement-oriented action film. So that's something I'm looking forward to. Yeah, I'm open to various genres. But I'm just, natural in this, you know, I like I watch a lot of, you know, comedy and like watching comedy, like watching a slice of life kind of genre. So I feel more comfortable in that genre. It's, you know, you get comfortable in certain genres. I'm comfortable. And you get, you know, typecast in it. So I know I'm no problem. I did try to do some serious stuff. But you know, things didn't work out materializes best to do what you have to do.

Tell us about your upcoming projects.

So I'm doing an adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. It's in the similar world of Aisha. And yeah, it's good fun. Slice of life. It's a drama. It's about two young women setting the Gen Z world today and how they see their own future and how they take their own journeys.