Aryan Khan’s debut show, The Ba***ds of Bollywood, became quite the sensation when it was released on Netflix in September. Aryan Khan and his co-creators, Bilal Siddiqi and Manav Chauhan, received immense praise for their dramatic show, which takes self-aware digs at Bollywood. However, in a recent chat with Variety, they revealed that they did face some ‘restrictions’ during the later stages of production.
Aryan Khan said, “We did get some notes on certain scenes where they were like, ‘Oh, this is too this, or this is too that,’ but then I took a stand. If you don’t like it, I mean, the show is not meant for you, or it is meant for you, but you might not like it; your 18-year-old kid might like it. Your uncle might like it who likes certain kinds
of humour or certain kinds of jokes.”
While Aryan Khan’s show is based on some reality, a lot has been exaggerated for viewers. Aryan said, “What is interesting about the show is — in Bollywood, there’s many truths, many lies, that kind of are disguised.. and vice versa, and it’s just the novelty of the mystery or the wonder that entices audiences to watch. People will be fascinated by it, be annoyed by it, be whatever they want because of the largeness and the mystery and the wonder.”
He continued, “We were pushing it for screen, obviously, but obviously, there’ll be things that are inspired. There’ll be scenes that are inspired on certain realities, and there’ll be exaggerations. It’s not obviously a documentary.” He revealed that he “wanted to be self-deprecating, but not disrespectful” towards the industry.
Aryan revealed that he also put some restrictions on himself early on. “I think we maintained that line correctly, and the guardrails were self-imposed, mostly because, making something about the industry and being a part of the industry, there has to be — there is a lot of respect,” he mentioned.
He added, “People were extremely sporting, and we also made an effort not to push boundaries in terms of being disrespectful, only being self-deprecating.” Aryan mentioned that he had reservations about the tonality of the show as well, as he didn’t want it to become too slapstick or too spoofy.
Bilal Siddiqi mentioned, “The three of us spent so much time writing it, we just instinctively felt that some things, while in discussion, probably didn’t fit our show, so we discussed it to the fullest and then left it aside. Or some things instinctively felt right on the first go, so we incorporated that.”
“So there were no guardrails externally put on us. It was just us discussing things that were best for the story we wanted to tell. The tropes that we used, we were quite clear at some level, we wanted to subvert them. So we subverted the classical Bollywood rom-com in a certain sense,” he said.
Recently, Rajat Bedi, who plays Jaraj Saxena on the show, confirmed to News18 that it has been renewed for a second season. With the buzz surrounding Aryan Khan’s debut, fans are eagerly awaiting the second season, which will seemingly feature Lakshya, Sahher Bambba, Mona Singh and Bobby Deol trapped in a ‘family drama’.