Bhumi Pednekar, Ishaan Khatter on their fresh pairing, how The Royals brings rom-coms back to Indian screens | Exclusive | Web Series

The world of The Royals

The Royals is the love story of ‘a rajkumar and an aamkumari’, as the makers put it, a new twist on the star-crossed lover trope in romantic comedies. Ishaan, who plays a prince in the show, says, “In some ways, being an actor is always like being a kid in a playground, as you are exploring and doing new stuff. In this case, the playground was very lavish. The fact that we were shooting at the actual City Palace (in Udaipur) greatly helped us to get into character. The atmosphere was all real. Our reference points were right in front of us at all times.”

For Bhumi, the story is about the two kinds of royalties in India colliding. She explains, “To me, the world (of the show) is about new royalty, which is the founders of these unicorns and startups, who are contributing to our economy and changing the system in so many ways. The theme of the show is them against the old royalty. My character, Sophia, comes in as someone who doesn’t belong to this world, but has seen her fair share of success. She has come up the hard way and is a woman in a man’s world. Then she comes into this world and is taken aback.”

Bringing rom-coms back to Indian screens

Romantic comedies were a staple of Indian entertainment for the longest time before streaming put action dramas and gangster shows first. In that milieu, The Royals is refreshing. “When was the last time you saw a romantic comedy series out of India that went bold and big, set in palaces and boardrooms,” says Rangita Pritish Nandy, the show’s creator, showrunner, and producer.

Tanya Bami, Series Head – Netflix India, adds, “Rom-coms are a genre we all love, and we are happy to bring back this genre on streaming. The Royals has a very dreamy and quirky quality you’d want in your next favourite romantic watch —charm, humour, heart, chemistry, a fab star cast – all in a fresh, stylish twist.”

Apart from Ishaan and Bhumi, The Royals boasts of a large ensemble cast, including Zeenat Aman, Sakshi Tanwar, Nora Fatehi, Dino Morea, Milind Soman, Chunky Pandey, Vihaan Samat, and Sumukhi Suresh, among others. Talking about the challenge to bring so many names and faces together, Nandy says, “The first: just having the nerve to conceive it—that was my father, Ishita, and me just being insanely audacious and Monika, Tanya, Kartik, Anu, Shikhaa, Utsab of Netflix fanning our greed to go big! But the biggest part of that is having writers who jump on that brief and write you characters that actors, always greedy for great parts, will not be able to say no to and for that, I must shout out to Neha Sharma along with Vishnu Sinha and Iti Agarwal who put magical words to our ambitions.”

Bami adds, “It’s not just about names, it’s about crafting root worthy characters who leave a mark and stay with you long after the show is over. That’s the magic that happens when great writing meets amazing casting. We’ve worked with some of the industry’s biggest names and introduced exceptional new voices. But at the heart of it all is one guiding principle: the story comes first.”

About Ishaan and Bhumi’s fresh pairing

Ever since the show’s teaser was revealed during Netflix India’s slate announcement earlier this year, there has been a lot of chatter about Ishaan and Bhumi being paired opposite each other. Bhumi says, “It’s refreshing for me to have done this with Ishaan. I have followed his work for years and he is quite a brilliant actor. I really hope the audiences enjoy watching us as much as we enjoyed working with each other.”

The Royals premieres on Netflix on May 9.