Was Cate Blanchett ever doubtful for the role?
SK: She was. She went through a period of great doubt about whether she would or whether she wouldn’t. Was the last film enough? Was there something that we could do more of? Don’t forget the last film became an icon; it became larger than it was. It put an actress onto the world that everybody started to worship, then Cate is worshipped, it’s very interesting to watch how people react to Cate – they worship her. They call her a force of nature and in the film she’s a force of nature. She can’t do anything wrong. LF: How much research did you do in pre-production this time around? SK: On my website [ShekharKapur.com] there is something called ‘Creative Adda’ which in Hindi means ‘Pleasure to accomplish act’. In Creative Adda are our first thoughts. You can find my first ideas for the film and the first paintings we did with my production designer. There’s also a site from Justin Pollard; he’s a writer and a historian. I preserved everything he said to me on ‘Creative Adda’. If you want
