The cinema of Yash Chopra — the undisputed ‘father of romance’ in Hindi films — as well as the legacy of the late filmmaker’s production house Yash Raj Films (YRF), which celebrates its 50th year, is captured and chronicled in The Romantics, a fourpart documentary series that streams on Netflix on Valentine’s Day.

Showcasing the impact of YRF films in shaping India’s pop culture for the last 50 years, The Romantics combines archival footage as well as talking heads, with as many as 35 personalities — Aamir Khan to Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan to Ranbir Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan to Ranveer Singh, Rani Mukerji to Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif to Anushka Sharma, and more — talking about the legend and his legacy.

The Romantics is directed by Los Angeles-based Indian-American film-maker Smriti Mundhra. Nominated for an Oscar as well as an Emmy, Smriti has projects like Never Have I Ever and Indian Matchmaking to her credit. The Telegraph chatted with Smriti on the how and the why of The Romantics....

There has been a lot of interest around The Romantics ever since the trailer dropped. What’s been the most predominant tenor of audience’s expectations from the show?

The response has been tremendous. What I have been noticing from the comments and tweets and general feedback is a deep sense of nostalgia. They are eager to revisit these beloved films, hear the stories from all the big stars who have been a part of these seminal films that all of us have loved....

And that’s what the idea behind making The Romantics chiefly was. To capture that feeling of nostalgia and to know more about the films that shaped our sense of pop culture.

What was the starting point of this series and what made you zero in on The Romantics as a title?

A few years ago, I walked into the YRF office and had a general meeting with the guys there. They asked me stuff like: ‘What’s your dream project? How do you see us collaborating?’ And I said: ‘If you give me access to the YRF archives, I would like to make a docu-series on Yash Chopra.’ The reason why I wanted to do this was because for so many of us, Yash Chopra’s films have been seminal when it comes to romance in Hindi films. Even beyond romance, his films have impacted generations through their powerful storytelling. From my childhood to early adulthood, they really were my introduction to Hindi cinema. So many iconic films have come from this studio.

What really prompted me to make this was the fact that apart from the entertainment aspect of it, the films from YRF — especially those from Yash Chopra — embody the social and political history and the cultural fabric of the times they were made in. If you graph the major moments in Indian history — from Partition to all the way down to the advent of corporatisation and the beginning of multinational culture... all of these major landmarks are represented very well in the films from YRF. In many cases, their films even helped shape the culture and thought of the time. So I thought that this was a really good starting point for a series like this.

The reason it’s called The Romantics is because Yash Chopra and YRF redefined romance for every new generation, and also championed the romantic form at a time when that genre had really fallen out of favour. He changed the tide of Hindi cinema from action films to the romantic films of the 1990s. And then, of course, Adi (Aditya) Chopra took it to another level with DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge). The Romantics traces that.

Putting together 50 years of such a rich and diverse legacy into a four-part series must have been a tall ask. What were the biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge definitely was in how to take so many decades of legend and history and encapsulate it in just four episodes. As far as I am concerned, it could have been eight or 10 parts, but with just four episodes, we had to streamline, we had to pick and choose and focus on which people we wanted to interview and that was quite a challenge. The second challenge was to get Aditya Chopra to agree to be interviewed! (Laughs)

That’s a major coup that you have pulled off... giving the world a chance to see that Aditya Chopra really exists!

Interacting with him was great. He is such a champion of cinema and he’s a very supportive producer. He believed in my integrity and gave me complete autonomy. He’s very erudite and very knowledgeable and passionate about cinema and he gave me many insights. In the series, he not only chats about the evolution and the journey of Yash Raj Films, but also highlights why films are so important to any culture.

Smriti Mundhra, the director of The Romantics, streaming on Netflix today

Aditya Chopra wanted to be a documentary film-maker at some point in his life. Were there any inputs or insights from him on that front?

When I went in, I actually had no idea that he ever wanted to be a documentary film-maker! (Laughs) Honestly, he had no inputs in telling me how to work on this medium or my process. He was very clear from the beginning that I could do this my way. I was given access to the archives and I was provided with the contacts of those I could speak with. He just wanted everyone to know that the project had the blessings of the studio and wasn’t an unauthorised project or anything (smiles).

You interviewed as many as 35 personalities from Hindi cinema for The Romantics and spent a lot of time researching the subject. Is that the maximum amount of time you have spent on a project so far?

My first film actually took seven years to be made! (Laughs) But yes, working on non-fiction does requirea lot of time for research and scheduling and putting everything together.

Apart from Adi Chopra and the immediate family, who had the maximum insight into Yash Chopra’s cinema and his world?

It would be Mr (Amitabh) Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. They worked on multiple films with Yash Chopra and Aditya Chopra, and in some of the most seminal films from the YRF stable. They had a lot of personal anecdotes to share.

Was the process or approach while making The Romantics different from what you have done in the past in the same genre?

Yes, definitely. This is my first series which is entirely built on interviews and archives. It was also my first time working with so many stars! (Laughs) People I have watched all my life on screen.

Working with so much archival material had to keep me on my toes constantly because I had to bring it all together in a way that would keep the viewer engaged across four episodes.

Having made this now, what do you think Yash Chopra’s legacy truly is?

It’s about exploring human relationships without any fear or any preconceived notion or judgment, in terms of what those relationships should look like. He really loved his characters, whetherthey were making good decisions or bad. His legacy is a passion for storytelling and for film-making. And I hope we have captured that for the audience in The Romantics.