Producer’s Choice

He’s one of the most successful producers in the Hindi film industry with a roster of partnerships with filmmakers and actors. From his first production, the dark and witty Being Cyrus (2006), when he was all of 23, to his latest triumph Mimi, Dinesh Vijan has proved that an adept student of cinema with an instinct for talent can go places even if he is the archetypal outsider. Piloting films that have changed people’s careers—whether it was Cocktail (2012) for Deepika Padukone, Go Goa Gone (2013) for former producing partner Saif Ali Khan, Badlapur (2015) for Varun Dhawan, or now Mimi for Kriti Sanon—is not an accident, it’s an art. Vijan keeps three things in mind when he reads a script: it should have no reference point from the past, it should have an actor in it who is keen to be reinvented and it should have the potential for success at the box office or on streaming platforms. He also learns from his mistakes. “Agent Vinod [2012] taught me how to make Badlapur,” he says, “because a director like Sriram Raghavan cannot be made to hold his punches.” His own directorial debut, the lavish Raabta (2017), he says, had fallen behind the times. “The country had changed fundamentally in the time it was written and made. Purchasing power had risen, multiplexes had moved to Tier II towns, and people there were hungry for their own stories. They were proud of themselves and their country. That’s why Hindi Medium (2017) did so much better than Raabta,” he says, apart from the presence of the beloved Irrfan Khan. The son of a transport company owner, Vijan has an array of films lined up thanks to a team of writers and directors he trusts. They cross genres: Shiddat, a love story starring Radhika Madan and Sunny Kaushal; Hum Do Hamare Do, about children adopting parents, with Rajkummar Rao, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal and Ratna Pathak Shah; Dasvi, where Abhishek Bachchan and Nimrat Kaur are brilliant; Bhediya, a horror thriller with Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon; and 21, about 1971 war hero Second Lt Arun Khetarpal. If the directors (Sriram Raghavan, Laxman Utekar and Amar Kaushik) and actors (Kriti and Varun) are repeated often, it is no coincidence. “You develop an ecosystem where you organically want to keep working with the same people,” he says. Especially, if the end result is a success.

More than Perfect

Meeting Dimple Cheema was extraordinary for Kiara Advani. “There is still so much love and such a sparkle in her eyes when she talks about Captain Vikram Batra even 22 years after he has passed on,” marvels the star of Amazon Prime’s Shershaah, on Captain Batra’s short but epic life. It has given Kiara a healthy respect for Army officers’ families. “Each time their loved ones leave, they don’t know if it is the last goodbye,” she says. “The Army officers are trained for their work but there is no one to train the wives in the act of waiting and sacrificing.” Such selfless love is celebrated in Shershaah, where Kiara plays Captain Batra’s fiancée, Dimple, who never married after he died. Kiara is a great admirer of Mare of Easttown and celebrates, like Kate Winslet, the idea of attainable beauty. The idea of the quintessential hero and heroine has long changed, she says, pointing out that playing a pregnant woman with no make-up, as in Kabir Singh (2019), is now been-there-done-that. “The cinema we’re watching has become so relatable that now these things are expected of actors. Perfection is boring,” she says.

Empire of Laughter

When you don’t get enough opportunities, make them happen. Sumukhi Suresh never imagined when she quit the food business for standup comedy that she would have her own series on Amazon Prime, or be part of a Comedy Premium League on Netflix. Content to occupy the middle ground right now, she says she wants to create her own empire like Shonda Rhimes. With a writers’ room that represents diverse experiences, she finds the laughter more flavourful. Having fought early prejudice about being a big girl, she has moved way past that, bringing with her the self-confidence and self-assurance that comes with success. Society is not kind to big girls and big boys, she says, sharing her learning from conversations with fellow comic Tanmay Bhat, so they’re forced to become interesting. Her laughter, especially after Covid, is the best presentation of herself.

Did You Know

Kareena Kapoor Khan was supposed to play the part that went to Arjun Kapoor in Netflix’s Sardar Ka Grandson

BollywoodcinemaDinesh VijanKiara AdvaniSumukhi Suresh