If romance novels, reality dating shows, and romcoms have taught us anything, it’s that people love love. What’s more, people love watching others attempt to find their one true love, no matter what path they take to get there.
In Shekhar Kapur’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” that path looks a little different than what some audiences are used to, as two childhood friends, portrayed by Lily James and Shazad Latif, go on an adventure to find love via arranged marriage.
“What’s Love Got to Do with It?” premiered on September 10, 2022 at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Kapur and several cast and crew members stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio to discuss the film with TheWrap’s editor in chief Sharon Waxman.
“[The film] is around the idea that the greatest mystery in the world [is] love,” Kapur said. “But what we keep looking for is intimacy. It’s about the huge confusion around these two words. People looking for love, people looking for intimacy, in the confusing new world of Tinder and all the other apps.”
“And it’s about the conflict between two cultures, one that says, actually, love happens after passion and the other culture that says, you have to get together, you have to start loving each other and getting to know each other, and then passion comes.”
Joining Kapur in the studio were James, screenwriter Jemima Khan, and actors Asim Chaudhry, Jeff Mirza and Shabana Azmi.
“It challenges all your preconceived ideas. At the core of it, it’s like this human instinct of, ‘How do you find your person?’” James said.
The actress went on to reference a line from the film and a recurring them of two people needing to feel a “spark” between them.
“It’s walking into love or falling into love,” she said. “And it’s like, okay, you feel passionately in love with someone and then maybe it fades out and this other version where you walk into love and the passion follows.”
For the full conversation about “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” click on the video above.
Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.