Taapsee Pannu, Prithviraj Sukumaran and Manoj Bajpayee on filming Naam Shabana. The principal cast of the spy thriller Naam Shabana — Taapsee Pannu, Prithviraj and Manoj Bajpayee talk about the challenges of doing their latest Bollywood flick.
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http://gulfnews.com/life-style/celebrity/desi-news/bollywood/naam-shabana-stars-speak-out-against-nepotism-gender-bias-1.2002225
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Read the full Gulf News article:
http://gulfnews.com/life-style/celebrity/desi-news/bollywood/naam-shabana-stars-speak-out-against-nepotism-gender-bias-1.2002225
See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00The thing is, I suppose most of you would have seen Baby, I have, and this is basically
00:18what happens with Shabana before Baby.
00:22So the film deals with itself in two different parts.
00:26One is how Shabana was inducted into the agency.
00:30The second half is all about pace and thrill and adrenaline and all that.
00:36I'm a new face in this entire thing, but it also talks about Shabana's reason to be part
00:44of this Baby gang.
00:47In her backstory, my character comes and how she was spotted by this guy and his team,
00:52and how she was tested in a very tough manner by this guy.
00:59Her training was monitored by him, her job assignment was done by him.
01:04So he's somebody who's responsible in getting Shabana into the agency.
01:14You will see me as a very regular girl next door.
01:17I'm not wearing leather pants and boots to fight.
01:20Shabana is a very sexy girl actually.
01:23Her attitude is pretty sexy.
01:24I didn't have to become a guy.
01:26You know, one of the boys.
01:28Yeah, no, no, no.
01:29And the way I fight in the film, it's very believable.
01:32So it's not like I'm punching on there, five people flying in there.
01:35It's not happening like that.
01:36It's very believable.
01:37You will believe that she can actually pin down this guy the way I do it.
01:41So no, I didn't have to act like a guy.
01:44And I think heroism is not about gender.
01:48Heroism is independent of gender.
01:51And I think it's high time we see hero as a term for both girl and boy.
01:57It's nowhere a gender fight to be the hero.
02:01Most of the legwork was already done when we were researching for Baby.
02:07The role of espionage and military intelligence and all that.
02:12So let me put it this way, quite a lot of the spade work for this film was already done
02:17when we were scripting for Baby.
02:21The idea for Naam Shivana was on cards at the edit of Baby, where we saw Taapsee doing
02:29an 8-minute, 10-minute role.
02:31And the kind of impression that she left in that 8-10 minutes, it just got us thinking
02:36that why not tell her story as to how she landed in the team.
02:39And that's where it all started.
02:41And this is the material that was already researched for our account.
02:44We just put it in play, got the script done and got the film going.
02:50The main challenge was to remember those many lines.
02:53Because in this film, I think mine is the only character who speaks so much.
03:00Really?
03:01Yeah.
03:02In fact, we got him on board because of this, because we needed an actor who could speak.
03:06Who could memorise those lines?
03:07Yes.
03:08Who could speak?
03:09My goodness, more than 200-250 lines.
03:11Do you, in real life, are you that articulate?
03:14No, he's not.
03:15He's not?
03:16I mean, you shouldn't ask me.
03:17That's the reason he's a good actor.
03:21About not doing characters that put down women or not doing characters that are misogynist,
03:28the clarity that needs to be brought in here is that I do not mind doing a misogynist character.
03:34My problem is with that character being celebrated or hailed as a hero.
03:40That, I'm just not comfortable with anymore.
03:44I don't want to be part of cinema and part of characters that think it is a hero's right
03:51to treat the women in the film in a certain way.
03:54That is not befitting of their self-respect.
03:56That, I can't do anymore.
04:00This film happened even before Pink came my way.
04:03This film was a month or two after Baby released.
04:07So, it's got nothing to do with Pink or Pink happening or Pink success.
04:12So, the fact that Neeraj sir believed that I could carry a title role when I was just two films old in Bollywood,
04:19I don't know how did he think that.
04:22So, I never thought that this film will come my way regardless of Pink or no Pink.
04:27That itself is a huge thing and that so early in my career.
04:30So yeah, I do feel a sense that there are certain expectations now after Pink.
04:38But this film is purely independent of what people have seen me in Pink.
04:42It would have happened regardless.
04:48I think that's life, isn't it?
04:49I mean, I never expected you to come on a platter.
04:53We knew that we'd have to work our way through this.
04:57I've never felt bad when an actor has turned down a project from me
05:01because that person has also got a life of his own or her own.
05:04And he or she would have a career path of her own.
05:07So, the decisions that I make belong to that person.
05:10I won't take it so badly that I'll never work with that person at all.
05:14It never happened in my life and won't start doing that either.
05:18I believe that every project is a start from scratch.
05:21And we tend to cast people that way.
05:24That's the mindset our company, Freydevil, works.