EXCLUSIVE: Ram Gopal Varma on Kangana Ranaut’s ‘soft porn’ comment on Urmila Matondkar: It bothers me but freedom of speech is fundamentally about that

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma is someone who never minces his words and puts forward his opinions in a very strong manner which sometimes doesn’t go down well with the masses or Twitterati. He is also one of the unapologetic people on social media or Twitter. There is a different perspective on everything that he says or writes. RGV has given breaks to many versatile actors like Urmila Matondkar, Manoj Bajpayee, and others. Talking about Urmila, he directed her in films like Rangeela, Satya, and Bhoot to name a few. In 2020, when actress Kangana Ranaut launched a personal attack on Urmila Matondkar by calling her a ‘soft porn star’ who is ‘not known for her acting’ in an interview, Varma came in support of Urmila calling her a versatile actress.

In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, when we asked the filmmaker about Kangana’s comment on Urmila, if it bothers him, to which he said, “The whole point of social media is that people express their opinions, sometimes use languages that can be offensive but that’s the whole point of freedom of speech. In the context of my personal feeling about Urmila, about her performance, I appreciated her versatility. What Kangana said, it’s her viewpoint. I didn’t say anything about Kangana saying it. It bothers me but freedom of speech is fundamentally about that. If you don’t bother somebody, what is the point of speaking? When you say you need freedom of speech, is only when you offend somebody. I say a lot of things about lots of people and am sure they get bothered and offended. So, when I do that, I don’t have the right to talk about someone else’s saying something about someone.”

If we look at the career graph of Ram Gopal Varma, we see he has made some of the terrific gangster dramas like Satya, Sarkar, Ab Tak Chhappan, and others. In most of his gangster films, he has portrayed the human side of the gangsters. When asked if he feels of being misjudged or misrepresented by audiences because lots of cruel things are said about him on social media, he said it doesn’t bother him at all.

“I feel the whole point of social media is that everyone reacts to everybody and the stronger opinion you have, the stronger they react. So, that’s really doesn’t bother me. Most of the time I don’t check my timelines of what people have sent unless someone sends me a link of anything. There is a bunch of barking dogs who really don’t mean anything even what they write also. So, that’s not the issue. But irrespective of what they say or not say, I think social media’s main purpose is where you can express your opinion or say something which you believe or feel at that moment and I will continue doing that,” said RGV.

You can watch the full interview of Ram Gopal Varma here.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Ram Gopal Varma: If Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan were in ‘Satya’, its essence would’ve been lost