Karan Johar reveals how a family member inspired Dharmendra-Shabana Azmi's love story in RRKPK: 'It was a scandal...'

Karan Johar's romantic drama Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, starrin Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the titular roles, is one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of the year. The film received tremendous love from the masses and classes, and went on to collect more than Rs 300 crore gross at the box office worldwide.

One of the most discussed aspects of the film has been Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi's love story in the film, who play Ranveer and Alia's grandparents. Now, Karan Johar has shared that he was inspired by his own famly member for their romantic journey in his film. In a conversation with fashion designer Prabal Gurung, the filmmaker said, "I remember there was an incident that happened in my family where a member of my family actually had dementia and he had gone back to his past love."

"Only thing is he was a married man and he kept taking the name of this one lady. He just said this name and it was a scandal. And then the truth came out that he was actually having an affair. And there was drama happening in and around this situation. And my father had to fly down. My mother had to fly down . And I remember instead of feeling terrible about what was happening between these three people at an average age of 82, I was like, ‘Wow, like this is great.’", the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai director continued.

Adding that he is "obsessed" with infidelity, Karan stated, "For me, I’m so obsessed with infidelity. I made a movie on it and I remember someone telling me, ‘Why are you endorsing infidelity?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, you can’t endorse something that’s already sold out.’ Just emotionally speaking, I’m always intrigued by the idea of infidelity and how it can be a reality."

The filmmaker said that when he was revisiting this incident with his mother, the idea for Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani popped up in his head. "I called up Ranveer and Alia and we got into a conference call and I was like, ‘I’m writing a love story called RARKPK.’ And then I asked Ranveer, ‘What do you have to say?’ He said, ‘You had me at hello, like, on the phone.’ And Alia was like, ‘Why are you even asking me? We’re doing this, just tell us when.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, let me write the film.’ And I wrote it. It just turned out to be fun", he concluded.

Also starring Jaya Bachchan, Aamir Bashir, Churni Ganguly, Kshitee Jog, Anjali Anand, Tota Roy Choudhury, and Namit Das in prominent roles, RRKPK marked Karan's return to direction after seven years since Ae Dil Hai Mushkil in 2017. The Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh-starrer started streaming on Prime Video last week.

READ | Karan Johar reveals this person refused to do Kuch Kuch Hota Hai because of its title but regretted his decision later