For seven-year-old Yatharv, fathers are heroes by default. Mythological demon kings are not. So when the boy learned his father, Yash, had stepped into the shoes of the ten-headed Lankan ruler in Nitesh Tiwari's big-screen retelling of the Ramayana, the household ran straight into an identity crisis.
Yatharv had absorbed the ancient epic from his grandparents. He understood the moral battle lines long before walking into a preview screening. Ravana was the villain. His father was supposed to be the champion.
Speaking with television presenter Suma Kanakala, Yash unpacked the moment his son confronted him over the casting choice. The young boy could not reconcile the myth with the man across the breakfast table.
For a son, his father is his hero. Since he knows the story of the Ramayana, he asked me, 'You are Ravana? How can you be Ravana? Aren't you Rama?' So, I said, 'Yes, I am Rama in real life, but in the movie, I am playing Ravana.' But he was like, 'Then you are the bad guy.' So, I explained to him about cinema and acting, showing him drawings and all of that.
The explanation did not completely soften the blow. During the film's world premiere in Los Angeles, the fiction shattered whatever comfort the sketches had offered. Watching the screen, Yatharv broke down in tears the instant Yash's Ravana struck down Jatayu.
Sai Pallavi, who stars as Sita, witnessed the aftermath firsthand. During a press interaction, she recalled Yatharv turning directly to Yash once the lights came up: "I didn't like you killing that bird."
For Yash, the unvarnished critique hit home.
"I could see they had so many questions because for them, life is just starting," Yash noted. "They are understanding how to behave, how to respect one another. I was so surprised to see my son's reaction."
Yash took on a dual mantle for the production, boarding the project both as its primary antagonist and as a producer. The decision brought immediate pushback from his inner circle.
"None of my friends or family—everybody—was like, 'Why do you want to play Ravana?'" Yash admitted during a cast discussion. "As a producer, I wanted to make Ramayana because it's our story, but as an actor, I wanted to play Ravana. The only challenge was that people thought, 'Okay, you are loved by people, and if you're doing a character who is so hated, people won't be able to celebrate you or appreciate you.'"
Co-star Ranbir Kapoor, who plays Lord Rama, backed the casting move, stating the production required sheer cinematic presence to balance the central conflict.
"Just the choice to play Ravana and represent him again in his truest form is not easy," Kapoor said. "You needed somebody larger than life, somebody with that aura and star power that Yash comes with."
| Character | Cast Member |
|---|---|
| Lord Rama | Ranbir Kapoor |
| Ravana | Yash |
| Sita | Sai Pallavi |
| Hanuman | Sunny Deol |
| Lakshman | Ravi Dubey |
| Kaikeyi | Lara Dutta |
Ramayana Part 1 arrived in cinemas on November 5 and bulldozed existing box office benchmarks. The production amassed ₹300 crore across its first five days, overtaking the opening five-day milestones posted by Animal, Jawan, and Pathaan.
The film now heads into its second week with unprecedented commercial momentum, anchored by a pan-Indian ensemble that continues to draw multi-generational family audiences to ticket windows nationwide.