JOIN USThe lure of reel money
His moustache and crew cut add that much needed authoritative, macho feel to the movie. Throw in some streaks of extraordinary imagination of director Abhinav Kashyap and Dabanng promises to be a never-before fare.
Salman plays Chulbul Pandey, nicknamed Dabanng, a ruthless cop. He’s fearless and a non-conformist to the core. He makes his money and successfully nabs those who make money through devious means.
“The story is woven around this rebellious, authoritative cop who’s invincible. The moustache and crew cut is my picturisation of the character,” Abhinav told Metrolife.
Technically, this is Abhinav’s first movie but he has written dialogues and has been an assistant to several directors including Mani Ratnam in Yuva. “Oh, Mani Ratnam is like a tiger on the sets. He never lets you rest. Working with him was a great learning experience,” he says.
Abhinav loves dabbling with a wide range of characters but he confesses that the character in Dabanng was a deliberate thought process. “I wanted to conceive a character that has no similarity to the genre of what my brother (Anurag Kashyap) has done before. I wanted to break free from sibling comparison which I know is inevitable,” he observes.
Abhinav says he’s like any other first time director — he wrote a script and waited for it to be picked up by someone, ‘That’s Anurag’s brother tag’ helped me only till the scripting. When you belong to a family of film-makers you get some positive feedback. But you can’t rest because of that,” he says.
Talking about Salman’s look in the film, Abhinav says it was tough to convince Salman to sport a moustache as he was also shooting for another movie which required him to have a different look altogether.
“I was told that Salman is a moody guy and that it wasn’t easy to deal with him. But I must say that we hit it off really well. We would discuss the script and make improvisations as well. Sonakshi has been an exceptional as a debutant,” says Abhinav.
All the men in the movie sport a moustache. Why? “It’s a tradition in the Eastern region of Uttar Pradesh that men don’t shave off their moustache until their father’s death. I wanted to be loyal to the terrain,” he says.
Talking about his stint with television, Abhinav says that although it’s a much smaller canvas, “working with television helps you think on your feet and come up with quick decisions without much delay,” he reasons.
Rumours galore that Abhinav would appear in a reality show, “No way... it’s too voyeuristic. If they’d pay me well I would rather judge a show than be a participant. The only lure in reality shows is the money,” he sums up. Dabanng will release on September 10.