Flavourful and enriching. I have had fun playing him, and it’s rare for narratives to allow that. I’m thankful to the people who created this entire world and to have a collaborative director like Gurmeet Singh, who I could play along with.
Guddu is a cocktail of these whacky people, who are so different from each other. He is an eclectic mix of all of them and reflects their many shades. Guddu started out as this guy who wanted to be a bodybuilder.
He was a simple and easy fellow, but then we see how society triggered him. I sat with this character, trying to take as much as possible from the vision of the writer and director. Then I started shaving off the predictability of it all.
We have the big North American release of Girls Will Be Girls coming up in September. We don’t want to shy away from trying our hands at all kinds of genres. For instance, we have a musical comedy coming up, as well as Papita, which has a dark Night Crawlerlike vibe.
Everyone has ideas, but finances are the real struggle. That is what makes people rely on formulas, and it is refreshing to see them getting broken. That is how we get new stories and fresh faces.
We want to champion that. Mediocrity pushes my buttons, we are in a world of narratives that are rich and a country that is a cultural hub. We do take time in churning out stuff, but we have some great cinema waiting to come out, and we hope to share it on the world stage.
I am super excited. There’s life before Mani Ratnam and afte.