How do you make the casting czar of Bollywood ecstatic in a moment and jittery in the next? First, offer him Jawan (2023), and then slip in that it will be helmed by Atlee, who is best known for his Tamil hits.
When Mukesh Chhabra was asked to consult Atlee, he got nervous. Not because he had to cast more than 150 people, but more because the relationship between casting directors and filmmakers is quite delicate. And, it is in the initial meetings that one figures out whether the pairing will work. Also, down south, there are no casting directors; the filmmakers do the casting. “But Atlee understood the strength of a casting director,” says Chhabra, “and the other advantage for me was that Bollywood was very new to Atlee.” It took him almost a month to understand Atlee. “When you are working with a director like Atlee who is not from here, especially when he has never done a Hindi film, it takes a while to just come around to his way of thinking,” he explains. “I figured that to crack this commercial film, we have to fill it up with a great ensemble cast, with new and established faces. I had earlier worked on big films like PK (2014), Sanju (2018), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)... this was very different in terms of scale and imagination. I had eight assistants on this film, and each focused on managing groups of ten actors.”
Chhabra was impressed by Atlee’s ability to gauge an actor from his or her photograph. “Somehow, he never saw an audition,” he says. “He would simply see the face and know whether this person could act or not. That’s how we found Aaliyah Qureishi, Sanjeeta (Bhattacharya), Lehar (Khan) and Riddhi Dogra.” And, it paid off—Jawan became the second-highest grossing Bollywood film.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 22, 2023 من THE WEEK India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 22, 2023 من THE WEEK India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
What Will It Take To Clean Up Delhi Air?
IT IS ASKED, year after year, why Delhi’s air remains unbreathable despite several interventions to reduce pollution.
Trump and the crisis of liberalism
Although Donald Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term to the US presidency is not unprecedented—Grover Cleveland had done it in 1893—it is nevertheless a watershed moment.
Men eye the woman's purse
A couple of months ago, I chanced upon a young 20-something man at my gym walking out with a women’s sling bag.
When trees hold hands
A filmmaker explores the human-nature connect through the living root bridges
Ms Gee & Gen Z
The vibrant Anuja Chauhan and her daughter Nayantara on the generational gap in romance writing
Vikram Seth-a suitable man
Our golden boy of literature was the star attraction at the recent Shillong Literary Festival in mysterious Meghalaya.
Superman bites the dust
When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park.
OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Meet G. Govinda Menon, the 102-year-old engineer who had a key role in surveying the Vizhinjam coast in the 1940s, assessing its potential for an international port
Managing volatility: smarter equity choices in uncertain markets
THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET has delivered a strong 11 per cent CAGR over the past decade, with positive returns for eight straight years.
Investing in actively managed low-volatility portfolios keeps risks at bay
AFTER A ROARING bull market over the past year, equity markets in the recent months have gone into a correction mode as FIIs go on a selling spree. Volatility has risen and investment returns are hurt.