Hit Bollywood filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, known most notably for her films like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Gully Boy, is also serving as one of the creators of the critically-acclaimed Amazon Prime Video web series, Made in Heaven, and had recently during a Clubhouse session spoken about the sex scenes on the show. Hosted by The Bollywood Film Club, she said that the intent was to be "straight up with it" rather than resort to being "squeamish". One of the directors of the hit anthology film, Lust Stories, Zoya was queried on the aesthetically shot sex scenes in Made in Heaven and also specifically those involving homosexual characters, including the process into making the scenes.
Zoya said, "I think the first part of the process was intent. I think we didn’t want to be squeamish and we decided that we want to treat this as an extremely normal part of the process and part of someone’s life. Either it could be lovemaking or hooking up or just plain sex which is no strings attached… Whatever it is, we are going to do it in a way that it would be aesthetic, non-gratuitous and we have to be straight up with it. We have to be like, ‘This is it. Watch it. And if you are uncomfortable and you forward it, after four episodes, you stop forwarding it. Because you have to do it.’ That was the first thing - intent."
Stating that all the four directors on Made in Heaven -- her, Nitya Mehra, Prashant Nair and Alankrita Shrivastava -- addressed the sex scenes just as any other usual sequence. "We treated it like you would treat a VFX scene or a song or an action sequence, where you actually break everything down into angles and positions, actors know exactly what they are doing, so they don’t come in there and are figuring out or are uncomfortable. You know exactly what their body position is, where the camera is and what’s going on. And of course, it’s a closed set," she said.
Praising her actors, Zoya stated that they all have evolved at their craft over time. She stated, "Whether it was Arjun Mathur or Vikrant Massey, these guys are super-evolved and they are super cool. And they are all straight boys. None of them had a problem. It was very comfortable to do. Now, we have intimacy coordinators, so if an actor is not very comfortable with just the director, we have an intimacy coordinator in. The point is, actors need to feel safe and know what you are doing. They need to know what they are doing before they get on set so everyone is on the same page. Just keep it elegant."
Made in Heaven revolves around the lives of Karan (Arjun Mathur) and Tara (Sobhita Dhulipala), who are wedding planners by profession in Delhi. The web series' cast also includes Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin, Shashank Arora and Shivani Raghuvanshi in vital supporting roles. The second season of Made in Heaven is still in development and has been delayed for well over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.