Cricket is my first passion and I’m glad I got a chance to direct Shabaash Mithu: Srijit Mukherji

I am ready to work in any language, as long as I work on my terms: Srijit

- Rachana Dubey

It took him five years to return to direct a full-blown Bollywood film after Begum Jaan in 2017. In a conversation with us, National Award-winning director Srijit Mukherji talks about making his upcoming film, Shabaash Mithu headlined by Taapsee Pannu, which is based on the life of ace cricketer Mithali Raj, his passion for the sport and the changing norms of content creation today. Excerpts:

Shabaash Mithu had a different director on board earlier and when you took charge, the film had already gone on floors. Was it difficult to find your space in such a scenario?

It was difficult. The pre-production work was already over and I had to restructure it. The original plan had to be changed. Looking at the way modern cricket-watching has evolved, we could not shoot matches for real. We decided to use footage, which was the more prudent thing to do. Also, we were shooting with COVID scare still in the air. A lot of locations became out of bounds. So, we had to restructure the blueprint, which was challenging. As an ardent cricket follower, I am clear about how those portions had to be shot and shown in the movie. We even cast many state-level players in the film, which is easier than training actors to become cricketers. Also, I reinstated things that had been taken out of the original screenplay. The points where your vision doesn’t match the writer’s or studio that’s backing the film, is where you have to arrive at a consensus, which I enjoyed.