Tell us a bit about Delhi Belly.
Delhi Belly is an Indian film in English. I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a landmark film for me.
People have tried to remake those (sort of) films, but what they’ve done is taken the script and translated it into Hindi and made the film.
The problem is that Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a British film and the characters are set in London. You cannot switch that. Similarly, Pulp Fiction is an American film and there is no way you can make that into a British film.
What our writer Akshat has done is written that kind of a film in India. The characters are Indian people and the humour is Indian. We’ve managed to make a film like Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in an Indian setting. We’ve never done that before.
We’ve heard Delhi Belly is a comedy. Is that true?
Vir Das is the best stand-up comedian in India. Then there is KRK (Kunal Roy Kapoor). Humour will be redefined with Delhi Belly. The style of humour is very dry, very straight-faced and sarcastic. You don’t emphasise that it’s a joke. You need to be fast to get it.
Do you gel well with the kind of humour in the movie?
This role was tailor-made for me. My humour is along those lines. I read the script and I knew the role was mine. I knew the lines and didn’t need to rehearse them.
How did you came to audition for the movie?
I did my first screen test for Delhi Belly in 2006. In 2007 and 2008, over the span of two years, I did five screen tests. There was initially a Swedish director called Robert who had come on board. I tested for him, then he left the project. Abhinay came on board and felt I was too young for the role as he wanted to make it with the mid-30s cast. I was rejected then. It didn’t work and he called me yet again. The final screen test was done in July 2008.
Are you branching into comedy now, and no more rom-coms?
For me, I like my commercial space and love doing rom-coms because they are fun. I like to do a film like Delhi Belly, too, because it gives me a chance to play. Maybe it’ll work, maybe not, but at least it will be fun.
Delhi Belly is a boy’s film and boys’ films will always be fun. The chemistry between all three of us clicked so well. Vir is hilarious and so is Kunal. Again, their sense of humour is in sync with mine so it was more of a boys’ club scene.
Do you think Delhi Belly will do well with Western audiences?
Somewhere I’d be a little worried about the Western audiences getting the humour of Delhi Belly. I mean, there are some things that are inherently Indian and you need to be an Indian in the head to get it. A lot of it is open for everyone to understand, but there may be some little idiosyncrasies that people may not get. However, the film has the scope to reach out to a non-Hindi speaking audience.
Do you think the film will leave an impact in Bolly?
We are pushing boundaries and taking so many risks that if the film works, Indian producers will want to take risks by making such films. – Bollywoodhungama.com