I'm Comfortable Doing Massy Entertainers, Says Varun Dhawan

Now, it's about doing things in my own style and not running this race: Varun Dhawan

- Madhureeta Mukherjee

Massy is his thing. From the beginning of his career, Varun Dhawan has worn the ‘Massy Hero’ badge with pride, and for him, it has worked wonders. The pandemic has changed him, not his choices or passion for cinema, but his state of mind. He’s still raring to go, but not in the rat race. He desires to do more of the kind of cinema he strongly believes in, crowd entertainers, but he says that even in that zone, “You need to figure out newer ways of entertaining the audience.” And even as the audience is still grooving to the hook step from the Nach Punjaban song from his recent release, Varun takes time out to talk to us about industry perceptions, his obsession and other truths.

Watching your film on the big screen after a two-year lull and after all the uncertainty that the film industry went through, did you heave a sigh of relief?

I am grateful that this could happen as we shot for Jugjugg Jeeyo through the pandemic. Neetu ma’am (Neetu Kapoor) and Raj Mehta (director) got COVID, and by the time we released the film, I guess most of the cast members had got COVID. It was extremely challenging, especially shooting for a family film during that time, as all characters were at close quarters, and we also shot songs. We didn’t want to compromise on the scale, so there were breaks in the shoot, but we were determined to make the film that we wanted to.

Street Dancer 3D was released in 2020, just before the pandemic struck, then Coolie No. 1, which was supposed to release soon after (in May 2020), was pushed ahead and eventually, it was released on an OTT platform in December 2020. At that point, how did it feel to see such a massy film meant for the big screen take the digital route?