Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani starrer Laxmmi Bomb has created quite a buzz with its fun yet hard-hitting trailer. The film directed by Raghava Lawrence is a horror-comedy where Akshay will play a transgender character.
Raghava opened up about his highly anticipated film in a recent interview where he spoke about what made him choose a story on the transgender community that is highly marginalised in our Indian society.
Excerpts from the interview:
Why did you choose to change the title for the Hindi remake of your Tamil film ‘Kanchana’?
Our Tamil film was named after the main lead character Kanchana. Kanchana means ‘gold’ which is a form of Lakshmi. Earlier I considered going the same way for the Hindi remake but we collectively decided that the name must appeal to the Hindi audience as well and what better than Laxmmi. By god’s grace, it was turning out to be a cracker of a film, so we named it Laxmmi Bomb. Like a dhamaka of Laxmmi Bomb cannot be missed, the transgender lead character is powerful and radiant. Hence the name fits perfectly.
The trailer looks fun with an ensemble cast. Tell us about your thoughts on the story and the different characters in the film.
The story was created to give the audience a mix of horror and comedy experience and also for the first time I tried to involve an important social message about transgenders into the horror- comedy genre. The characters are created in such a way that the audience can enjoy different variation of characters on the screen.
What made you choose a story that emphasises the transgender community?
I run a trust and few transgender’s approached my trust for help. When I heard their story, I felt like I wanted to tell their story to everyone through the character called Laxmi in this movie. After watching the film audiences will know what I am talking about.
This is the first time that a mainstream Bollywood actor is playing a transgender character, what are your thoughts on this?
After Kanchana released in Tamil, the movie received huge appreciation from transgenders . They directly came to my home and blessed me. So in Hindi when Akshay sir is playing the role, I believe that the message will reach an even wider audience. My special thanks to Akshay sir for accepting and playing this role.
