Ranveer Singh: I am lucky and blessed to be Deepika’s man – Exclusive! – Times of India

Ranveer Singh is an endless thunderbolt of energy and that defines his conversations, too. Ask him a question and you’re guaranteed to get an onion-like answer that peels into layers upon layers of information and opinion. ETimes caught up with Ranveer recently and we struck a conversation on his wife, lady love and the apple of his eye, Deepika Padukone. Naturally, Ranveer couldn’t stop from pouring his heart out. Speaking about everything he admires about Deepika, he said, “She is my Jordaar wife, is the most solid person I know. She is stable, sorted, meticulous and she is somebody who I admire for many reasons. I want to be more like her. She has such good habits, she has such control over her temperament. She never ceases to amaze and fascinate me. The more I get to know her, the more I fall in love with her.”

He is a star, too, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a self-professed fan of Deepika. He added, “She is a consummate artist and movie star. She is fiercely independent, and she runs her own show, she forges her own path. She’s been on international magazine covers, she’s the first Indian brand ambassador for the house of Louis Vuitton, she is doing things that are unprecedented for any man or woman in Indian entertainment. I am truly lucky and blessed that I am her man.”

Deepika’s last release Gehraiyaan was one of the most talked-about movies and we were curious to know what Ranveer thought about it. Again, he couldn’t contain his adulation and said, “I loved it, what a movie. It was intense, it comes from one of my favourite genres. I love noir films and the performances, tonality, manner of shooting, narrative and the moments Shakun (Batra) was able to create were fantastic. But for me above all, my baby’s performance left me breathless. The most amazing thing about her performance was that she lived that character, she lived every beat, every moment of it. It was not projected, it was not skill, it was not falsification. She lived the anxiety that her character was going through. I could see it! As an actor you are able to notice these nuances, so that little tremble of the hand, all the signs were there. Between action and cut, she was living the anxiety – that churning of the stomach, that heaviness in the chest, that conflict in the mind – I could see it, and I told her ‘you really lived it, didn’t you!”

Continuing to heap praise on Deepika, Ranveer said, “It was a masterclass, I have not seen such a thrilling performance, the next one close to that was Alia (Bhatt) in Gangubai Kathiawadi. These two artists fascinate me.” He admitted that he could write essays on Deepika’s performance in Gehraiyaan. He added, “I know because I am in the same line of work, so I know more about what goes behind creating something like that and therefore can appreciate it at a deeper level. I think I would rate it as one of her best performances. To be honest, I was not expecting it, which is why it hit me even harder. She keeps pulling my leg, ‘you don’t rate me as an actor’, but all that changed after Gehraiyaan. Now there is none of that pulling her leg, it’s just all respect and awe for what she has done. I couldn’t do that!”

Summing up, Ranveer compared Deepika’s performance to other fine acts he’s seen of late. He said, “Nothing gets to me more than actors putting on great performances. The last time I was mesmerised was with Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker, Jeremy Strong in Succession and Deepika in Gehraiyaan. It was stunning at every moment, she has become the master of her craft.”