Priyanka Chopra-Jonas is heading back to Indian cinema for the first time in years, and she’s going big and going home. The actress is set to star in Varanasi, S.S. Rajamouli’s next epic following RRR. The globetrotting film that is one of the most exciting upcoming action movies not only pays homage to her Indian homeland, it sent her to the heart of the African Savannah as well.
When CinemaBlend had a chance to chat with Priyanka Chopra-Jonas in Hyderabad, India back in November for an early press day for Varanasi, the actress set the scene about filming part of the movie in Kenya. In her words:
You remember when Mufasa dies in Lion King, right? You remember that moment where the sound of the wildebeest? So, that was all around us. [We were] in the middle of real wildebeest. It was during the migration period in Kenya, and that's what [Rajamouli] wanted specifically.
How can we ever forget Mufasa’s death in The Lion King? It’s one of the most heartbreaking movie scenes I can think of, and Chopra-Jonas told us that she felt like she was living it while filming her upcoming movie. The moment in the 1994 Disney classic is the perfect way for her to describe the feeling of being around wildebeest. She added:
We kept moving our shoot because the animals weren't starting to migrate. As soon as their migration process started, the whole crew picked up and we went there and we shot them. We had the rangers around us, but because our frames were so wide and they had to be out of frame.
Writer/director Rajamouli isn’t one to cut corners with the movies he makes, and since Varanasi is one of the first Indian films being shot for IMAX, he seeks to give audiences an immersive experience on the big screen. The same could be said for the actors while they were in Kenya as they were doing their scenes not too far from some gorgeous animals. Chopra-Jonas also said this of an experience with a family of elephants:
Wherever the elephants went, they had to be in our background. And, we had to do this scene [with banter] and you can see the family of elephants right behind us. And they were all real. The government of Kenya really, really helped us shoot the way I don’t think that’s been shot ever before.
During our time in India, we also got to attend a massive event for Varanasi where the first trailer for the film was unveiled on a huge 100 by 132 foot screen. Take a look:
The title of Varanasi is named after India's spiritual capital. We know the movie will take place during a large span of time across the globe and is inspired by Rajamouli’s love of the Indiana Jones movies. There will be big stunt sequences and song-and-dance numbers. Right now, we don’t know quite how these scenes shot in Kenya will fit into it all, but knowing how genuine their experiences were in Kenya definitely has us excited to see what was captured. Varanasi will be released globally on April 7, 2027.
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