'It's about finding love in your 40s': R Madhavan, Fatima Sana Shaikh talk about new Netflix romantic drama 'Aap Jaisa Koi'

Do we need another person to complete us, or is it better to find comfort in ourselves instead? If we are lonely, will another person's arrival make it go away, or will they exacerbate our loneliness? Judging by R Madhavan's words about his upcoming Netflix romantic drama, Aap Jaisa Koi, co-starring Fatima Sana Shaikh, we assume the film will address some of the above queries. Isn't that what we expect of any love story?

Madhavan, who was once the most sought-after loverboy in romance stories before he reinvented himself with serious, performance-heavy characters, tells ANI that Aap Jaisa Koi is a film that indeed addresses the "loneliness problem" and the idea of looking at someone as an antidote for your loneliness.

"Whether you're amidst a crowd or on social media or lying on your bed at night, you are forced to think whether the people close to us like us as much as we expect them to?" he asks, adding that the film's most notable quality is that he got to play an age-appropriate character, not someone in their early 20s. "I'm playing a 40-year-old man who falls in love for the first time. When a man falls in love for the first time, he behaves like a teenager. We are learning to express love in new ways in this modern age."

The actor assures that despite the many complicated circumstances and characters, the film, directed by Vivek Soni, makes one realise that "there are still many good things in the world, that there is still goodness and love."

Fatima Sana Shaikh calls the film "very beautiful" with "layered conflicts" and that she didn't want to miss an opportunity to work with Madhavan, who plays a quiet and introverted Sanskrit teacher who hails from a strongly patriarchal family with their own set of rules and limitations. Fatima plays a French teacher with a temperament opposite to his. In essence, it's what Aap Jaisa Koi is expected to be— a story of opposites and how conflicting perspectives interfere with their love story.

Addressing the patriarchal element, Fatima says, "In this film, we are talking about finding true equality in love... Some are patriarchal and very aggressive, but here we are not talking about that man. We are talking about a very innocent man who actually wants to love. But his conditioning is such that he doesn't realise that the way he loves is not equal... after watching this film, men will realise that women today are not trying to control men... we are talking about something very simple — equality."

Produced by Dharmatic Entertainments, Aap Jaisa Koi begins streaming on Netflix on July 11.

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