Kolkata: The city of joy hosted renowned filmmaker Neeraj Pandey along with actor Sidharth Malhotra for their upcoming film Aiyaary.
Scheduled to release on 26th January next year, the trailer of the film is out and looks quite promising portryaing a cat and mouse chase between two officers of the Indian Army, Abhay Singh; played by Manoj Bajpayee and Jai Bakshi; played by Sidharth Malhotra. On being asked about his experience of playing an army officer, Sidharth said, “I have not done a film where I have played someone in a uniform before so it was a very different experience getting into the shoes of Jai Bakshi.”
According to the director, Mr. Neeraj Pandey who has made noticable films like A Wednesday, Airlift, Dhoni- The Untold Story, Baby and several others, Aiyaary is quite relevant to the present times. Quite arguably, there has been a rumour of a probable clash between the release dates of Akshay Kumar’s and Neeraj Pandey’s films to which the filmmaker clarified, “Akshay and I are good friends so there is no question of a conflict. We discussed both of our release dates and we both believe that there should be a healthy competition. We should be able to take it in sportsman spirit.”
Aiyaary also stars veteran actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher. It was a walk down the memory lane working with them for Neeraj because his debut film A Wednesday cast both of them in the leads whereas for Sidharth, it was all a learning experience on set as he went on referring to them as “the two institutions of acting.”
Typecasting actors and directors have been a common issue with the Indian audience lately to which the director said,”Each of my film is different from the other so I am constantly experimenting or trying to experiment. Maybe its yet to cement in people’s perspective.” Sidharth had a similar opinion about the concept, “I think the story has to be appealing for me and should contain something new and interesting to play. I don’t like doing the same things again and again and I feel in today’s time, people have become very conscious of that plus it becomes repetitive and stale. If you look at my films in the past, they’ve all had different characters in different worlds and had a different story to tell. So, I wouldn’t want to do the same type of films over and over again. Although I would love to do a softer film if I get a good script.”
It seems Kolkata is one of Sidharth Malhotra’s favourite destinations to shoot. In support of the statement he said, “I keep on coming here for events and I am really intrigued to come and shoot here.”
Text: Subhraroop Saha.
Photos: Sandipan Mitra.
