Bacchan Pandey is all set to be released at the box office. The movie has a star cast full of talented actors starting from Akshay Kumar, Kriti Sanon and Arshad Warsi. We wanted to discover the actors’ experience of shooting the movie and more insights into how Bacchan Pandey came into existence, along with more behind the scene information.
When asked about his look in Bachchan Pandey, Akshay responded, “It was decided by doing photoshoots for 3 continuous days and then we decided to go with this look. The first day it took about 15, from the second day onwards it took about 3-4 min.”
“I think when you come from a non-film background it takes you 3-4 good films so that people can start to know you. It takes some time for them to recognise you. That’s what I meant then, as I was new to the industry. It feels really nice to come this far. I remember there was a time when I wanted certain kind of opportunities, which I didn’t have Infront of me. So, I chose the best from what I have, and I am grateful that those opportunities kept on growing. I am not someone who has done theatre or plays, I didn’t even know that I want to be an actor early on in my life. So, everything which I have learn is by doing.
I just feel nice that I am at a point in my life where people come to me and say what kind of film do you want to do. You can say that you feel like doing a thriller. You feel like doing a grey character and people take you seriously and they go back and search for what you want to do”, Kriti Sanon responded when asked about her journey in the industry.
While talking about her transition between characters she added, “If there isn’t a dialect then the transition is not so difficult, it just takes you some readings with a director. Last year I jumped from one film to the other very often almost to the point where it scared me because there was a backlog, after Bachchan Pandey I went straight away to Bhediya and after shooting for 3 days I went for Adi Purush which was a scary transition. But if there is a dialect, then it takes time. But I talk to my directors a lot, so it helps me.
I would love to do a patriotic film; I like to watch them. Somehow, I haven’t found a patriotic film that excites me as an actor, yet.”
Kriti continued, “I think this is a myth, maybe he used to be one but not anymore. Although there are these little things that he does such as sometimes he put a mic on the chair where I am supposed to sit, also while we were playing dumb charades while in train, he gave a film to someone and told us not to guess whatever happens, just to annoy the person who is acting. So, these are the little things which he does. He has got a great sense of humor, so he keeps you entertained always.”
When Akshay was asked about the affect that RRR could cause upon its box office he said, “Because of this pandemic many movies are going to be released on top of each other. Yes, it is going to impact but that’s not just true for our film, every film will be impacted by this. Every film’s business is going to go down by 30-40%. It is a very unfortunate thing, but you have deal with this. Just like the time when theatres opened for 50% audience there was an impact on the films released but you still must go with it, and industry survived that. To come back to the normalcy, it would take another year or so.”
He added, “I never had any kind of insecurity even when I started in the industry. For me, it was a really big thing to see myself on a poster. My family used to watch my films for 14-15 times. It was a great thing for me to work with other stars. I don’t understand this thing.”
On being asked about his character and his take on gray characters being the flavor of the season, he responded, “I don’t know what flavor is, and which flavor is going on. Although, it was a new thing for me, I was playing a grey character after a long time and I was enjoying it, it was a nice character to play. The best part about this character is that it is scary but slowly you will start to fall in love with this character. This character gets transitioned from scary to cute after a while. The best part about this film is its screenplay, that you start forgetting about the things that he is done. That is the power of the story. That is why I say this film is completely for family, children, or grandparents.”
He added,” The whole thing is different, the story, the way in which he speaks and thinks, I can’t pinpoint something when everything about this character is different.”
Akshay continued,” I like to play anything and everything. It’s been 30 years for me in the industry but there are still many characters which I feel are still pending. I have already locked about 7-8 films, and I am dying to play those characters. I have to say no to lots of other films which are coming to me, because of the workload, but when I hear those stories, I don’t want to let them go. It’s just I have a hunger for this, so I am a very greedy kind of a person when it comes to work. Although, I want to play a psycho. I like comedy, and the films which consists of a lot of that kind of scenes. My character in my upcoming film ‘Raksha Bandhan’ is my favorite kind of a character. It is full on comedy. When Anand Rai came to me with it, I just jumped to it.”
When being asked about the most difficult part of the scene, he responded, “The difficult part was to wear and removing the lens. It was very difficult, and I couldn’t do it alone. I couldn’t see with one eye, it was blur, and I had to work with that only.”
Kriti opened up about her favorite part of being on the set, “I think it was very fun experience, especially after the whole lockdown, we were in Jaisalmer and it was a time when everyone was cautious and we took a whole plane for the crew and we stayed in Suryagarh Palace, and it was just us there. We were shooting only around the hotel, we used to eat together, we used to play games. So, it became like a family, we used to play games and shoot in the middle of the games. So, the whole experience was a lot of fun.”
She continued about how she prepared for her character, “It is not the case for every film that you need prepare, thankfully. Otherwise, if I am gaining and losing weight for every film I would die. So, this was not that kind of a film. It is a film where there was a lot of energy among the characters. There were scenes which came alive on set rather than while preparing. I think you have to be more spontaneous, when you have someone like Akshay or Arshad. What’s good is that both of them do a lot of improvisations, it’s like what else can we do, and you have to react as an actor. Lot of scenes were made on the set only, I think this is not the film which needed a lot of preparation, I didn’t have to learn a new language or something like that.”
She said Mimi was a turning point in her career, “Definitely. Sometimes you are craving to do something more and sometimes it’s not in front of you and when you get it you grab it. I knew that it was giving me an opportunity to do something more as an actor. And when the film gives you so much you also have to do that in return. I think it gave me a lot in terms of range, whether it was comical scenes, and I was playing the title role, it had a flavor of comedy, but it also had a lot of intensity. I feel as an actor I enjoyed doing something like that.”
She continued about her Holi plans, “We don’t have no such plans, we were just discussing about celebrating it with the crew as our film is releasing, although, I don’t know whether that is actually happening or not. ”
