Tevar stars talk on attitude quotient

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The cast and crew of action drama Tevar drop into Khaleej Times to tell us why this adaptation of the Telugu movie Okkadu will kick off the New Year with a bang

Suhail Abdul Latif Galadari Director of Galadari Brothers LLC with Tevar co-producer Sanjay Kapoor actors Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha director Amit Sharma and actor Manoj Bajpai at the Khaleej Times office on Saturday

Two of Bollywood’s most exciting young talents are coming together on screen for the first time. While many would have expected them to showcase their talent with a unique story Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha chose to play safe with Tevar (which means attitude) an official remake of Telugu superhit Okkadu. But the actor insists this film is more than just a remake. “Only the soul of Okkadu is the same. We have retained the honesty of simple small town characters of that film but Tevar is our director’s (Amit Sharma) interpretation. The word ‘remake’ feels a bit frivolous because it sounds like cut copy and paste but this film balances realism and cinematic entertainment.”

Arjun sounded quite anxious as this is the first time that he is working in his home production with his father Boney Kapoor and uncle Sanjay Kapoor. “We started shooting exactly a year back and I didn’t know that I would feel so many emotions during the release. You still give the film away to the audience but it would always remain a very intimate film for me. I cannot vocalise it or put it in words but it has been a very emotional journey for me. The least anxious I felt was ironically enough for my first film Ishaqzaade. Its very strange but I didn’t feel any nervousness for that film but now certainly there is a nice nervous energy.”

HOME PRESSURE

No action movie in Bollywood is now complete without Sonakshi Sinha which is perhaps the reason why Arjun suggested the actress’s name for his home production. Unlike the hero Sonakshi who has fast garnered the reputation for being the darling of the masses sounded very releaxed ahead of the film’s release. “I am glad that I got the opportunity to be part of this project and that credit should go to Arjun because he insisted that I should be in this film” Sonakshi said. “This was not an easy film to shoot the kind of experience that we had while filming got us all closer.”

Sanjay Kapoor who turns producer with this film elaborated on why his nephew Arjun might be more nervous about Tevar than Sonakshi. “An actor has more pressure when he comes from the family of filmmakers. I think the pressure on Arjun is much more; I have done films for my father and outside as well but I always felt more pressurised when I did a film that my family produced. A lot of things like ‘Have they taken me because I am part of the family’; ‘I hope the picture becomes a hit’; go on in your mind all the time.”

Sonakshi Sinha could not resist taking pictures of celebrities featured on our wall of fame

Filmmaker Amit Sharma who is making his directorial debut with Tevar says he was glad that he got these two actors to be part of his debut feature. “I got a very good team including my producers. We shot in real locations of Agra and Mathura it was not easy to shoot as we were doing sync sounds.”

This film is a tale of unrequited love. Pintoo Shukla (Arjun) a local kabaddi champion in Agra takes it upon himself to protect Radhika (Sonakshi) from Gajender Singh (Bajpai) a local Bahubali from Mathura. Manoj Bajpai plays a bad guy who falls madly in love with the heroine. “He is someone who is dangerous. But if you don’t know about his background he comes across as a regular guy who is madly in love. He is experiencing love for the first time and he is like a child who wants his favourite toy at any cost. You can say he’s like a kid who is mesmerised with this girl and wants to marry her but after a certain point he comes to his real self and does what he is best at. That transition was very challenging for me” Manoj said while talking about his character.

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS

We don’t know as per rumours whether these two actors are dating each other but there was certainly a very easy fun and friendly camaraderie between the two. Arjun and Sonakshi went to the same school but became close friends only after working in this film. Remembering their childhood days Arjun said “We knew each other but we never invested time to know each other. I knew her brother more than her she knew my sister more than me so there was no rekindling. The first time we actually got to know each other was on the sets. It was a very amicable acquaintance level friendship but obviously it grew as there is a certain journey that happens in a film with a co-actor. Ironically this is not a love story but there is an undercurrent of love. I realised that she is a bloody good actor I mean Lootera had not released when she signed Tevar. I was very excited to see the performance side of her work in whatever flashes of her other films that I saw. By the time Lootera released I was very happy that Sonakshi was doing our film but yeah she is a fantastic actor. Amongst all the co-actors that I have worked with she is naturally the most pure actor; she doesn’t carry the baggage of being a star. This home production loves her more than me.”

Sonakshi said she was glad that her dream of working with Arjun’s father Boney Kapoor came true. “I was more than happy to be part of it because Sanjay Chachu and Boney uncle have literally seen me grow up. I used to be running around in their house all the time. I was just dying to work with Arjun’s father (Boney Kapoor).”

CREATIVE PURSUITS

This is an exciting time to be in Bollywood in terms of cinema and directors. Most of the young actors are not going for tried and tested roles. So what is the inner artistic hunger that they crave for “At a personal level you have this desire to play characters that are not you it would be pretty boring to play myself on the screen all the time” said Arjun. “For me it was pretty theurapetic to be a 70s gangster one day in Calcutta (for Gunday) and the next day flying out and being an IIM student in Ahmedabad (for 2 States) and one day being Savio a car mechanic in Goa (for Finding Fanny). More than the success and the failure of the film those worlds are important because they open your mindset: if I had not done Ishaqzaade I would have never understood the texture of Tevar because for Ishaqzaade I went to Lucknow and lived there. I think films can open your mind to new avenues and a new approach towards life meeting new characters through your films and of course new interpretations of directors that are equally exciting. Entertaining the audience is the thumb rule for me because in our country even if we make a patriotic film we have to make it entertaining for example Rang De Basanti works far better than say a patriotic film that only speaks about the jargon of what’s wrong with India. You have to find that balance.”

Whereas Sonakshi sounded a bit shifty no wonder as she is the only odd person in the industry who in spite of being super talented has stuck to playing the same old regressive characters. “For me in the last four year I have done a lot of work and enjoyed myself by doing fun films but now I want to experiment with different kinds of roles and push the envelope a bit further. I am not saying I will not do massy films I love those kind of movies if I feel strongly about it I will do it but I will also do other stuffs. In the last few years I have done all massy and one Lootera so now it will be a balance between two Looteras and two Rowdy Rathores!”

For ace actor Manoj Bajpai it’s about entering the danger zone. “Anything which is forbidden for me that works. This year I have signed a film where I am playing a 65-year-old professor who is gay. Everybody warned me against signing this film but I signed it. That’s the kind of rebel I am and I have always been.”

CELEB TRIVIA:Did you know that Arjun and Sonakshi share a similar background Both were chubby kids when Salman Khan spotted them and thought they could become actors. He made them lose weight and gave them inspiration to enter the glamorous world of movies. In fact we hear he was to be part of the song Main To Superman Salman Ka Fan in Tevar but because of time constraints could not make it.