When I took up ‘Jigra’, Ranbir cleared his schedule for next couple of months: Alia

New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) Alia Bhatt on Saturday said she and husband Ranbir Kapoor work their schedules around each other so that one of them is with daughter Raha at all times.

As two working professionals, Alia said she and Ranbir can relate a lot with young parents who deal with the responsibility of bringing up their children and fulfilling their work commitments.

“The truth is you have to have your priorities right. Our priority will always be Raha first. And our work is a huge part of who we are. I know I don’t want to lose that side of me because it’s what makes me happy. It’s what keeps the fire alive. And when she’s old, she will respect that part about her parents.

“Even though we have professional help, we try to work our schedules around each other so that one of us is with her at all times,” the 30-year-old actor said at the HT Leadership Summit here on Saturday.

Alia and Ranbir, 41, got married in April 2022 and welcomed their first child, daughter Raha, the same year.

The actor revealed that Ranbir has cleared out his schedule so that she can work on her upcoming movie “Jigra” with filmmaker Vasan Bala.

“When I took up ‘Jigra’, Ranbir cleared his schedule out for the next couple of months so I could be at work with ease. There are a lot of night schedules, which actually worked out very well for me because I get the day with her. I end up sleeping only five hours. But I think that’s one of the things you give up as a parent, you sleep less.”

“Jigra” marks Alia’s second production venture via Eternal Sunshine Productions after 2022’s “Darlings”, which was released on Netflix.

She believes celebrities are given too much importance when it comes to juggling their work life with parenthood.

“We as celebrities may get asked this question a lot. So we suddenly like to build up a celebrity (image) like how it has been like working parents or working mothers? But women work. My nanny who comes for my work has three kids. Even stay at home moms are working. It is a very normal thing,” she added.

Alia said the past one year has been quite overwhelming for her with back-to-back success in “Gangubai Kathiawadi”, “Darlings” and “Brahmastra Part One: Shiva”.

But she doesn’t believe in revelling in successes for a long time.

“I don’t really swim in successes or drown in failures. I like to learn good or bad from each experience and move on… I don’t cut to a wide shot that often, in film language.

“I like to just keep my head in the game and just just move forward with each (film). On a Friday, I let a film go to the audience and then whatever the fate of the film is, I accept it. I assess if things don’t go well. And if things go well, I have a grateful heart. And that keeps me really comfortable and grounded.”

Asked about her decision to turn producer with her 2022 movie “Darlings”, the actor said it is a part of her overall learning process.

“I don’t believe I have all the answers. And of course, it’s a bit of a tightrope to walk when you’re learning as a producer because you’re putting content out there. But I just felt a very deep sense of satisfaction when I was creatively involved in that journey.

“I consider myself a creative producer. So that experience felt very wholesome. It felt very holistic, it was not inward. I was thinking about the film as a whole,” she added.

With her production company, Alia said she is also trying to support new talent.

“I did it with ‘Darlings’ and gave support to new talent like Jasmeet. She was trying to get a film on the floor for many years and she came to me with ‘Darlings’. And I loved her and she’s extremely bright.

“So that’s the endeavour with Eternal, we’re working with a bunch of new talent. There are projects currently in development but even putting that together and making that see the light of day is an uphill task because there is so much content out there that everyone, the studios, the platforms, everybody’s playing it very carefully. That itself is a learning step right now,” she said.