Master Of All Trades

Himesh Reshammiya talks about his new film, Teraa Surroor, his casting coup and about wearing many hats all at once. 

Himesh Reshammiya (HR): Credit for that goes to the one year we spent on pre-production. In terms of production design, the idea was to work really hard and get our two-hour edited script on paper, which saves which saves half the cost since you know exactly what you have to shoot. Dublin, Ireland, played a very important role in the film and the place is a character in itself in the film. The film is set in Dublin and the girl Tara and the boy Raghu are madly in love. Tara gets caught in Dublin and gets framed in a conspiracy. 

The film is an escape thriller about how Raghu goes to Dublin and gets her out of prison. He designs her escape with a plan hatched by Robin Dharamraj Santino, played by Naseeruddin Shah, who has fled jail 14 times. Raghu has to find out who the man behind the conspiracy is, and who this man called Anirudh Brahmin is. We don’t know who Anirudh Brahmin is and why he is after Raghu and Tara. So how Raghu finds this out and whether he is involved in the conspiracy is a big question mark. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller but the core of the subject is the love story. 

The term ‘surroor’ is all about romance. So this is the love story of Raghu and Tara. The music takes the story forward. Had we shot the film in any other country, it would have been very expensive to get the kind of permissions we got in Dublin. We also had 14 hours of daylight, so we used to shoot from 7am to 10pm and managed to complete the film in 35 days and with `6.5 crore. A lot of workshops and nine to 10 months of planning went into the film, and we have used a drone in a very big way. 

It is a savior for filmmakers because using a drone can be cheap yet it gives you those grand, chopper shots which we usually can’t take in India due to lack of permission. And, of course, credit goes to the planning and support of all the artistes. They are veterans and they helped us finish the film on time. I mean, Shekhar Kapurji was not even well, which we learnt only after we completed the schedule. He was running a high fever as it was very cold in Dublin. It was difficult to shoot from 7am till night in Dublin but that schedule was very important and an integral part of the story and it went off very well.

 HR: This film is very fast-paced, so we didn’t have time to spend on screenplay in terms of establishing each character. There are scenes with Naseer saab and Shekhar Kapur and Kabir Bedi which take the story forward, so we needed actors and personalities who could establish a character in two minutes flat. For instance, you are familiar with a character like Robin Dharamraj Santino, who has fled jail 14 times and wrote his autobiography while in jail. He designs the escape plan for Raghu to get Tara out. A newcomer would not have justified this role and the actor would have also taken a lot of time to establish the character. But when you introduce Naseeruddin Shah as Robin Dharamraj, you know what he means in a fraction of a second, and he means business. 

The characters of Rajveer Kaul, the Indian ambassador in Dublin played by Shekhar Kapur, and Kabir Bedi as the commissioner Afzal Khan, were larger-than-life and their personalities were such that you could immediately relate to them. Therefore, you don’t need to spend time establishing their characters. I believe that casting the right actors is half the job done and we couldn’t have made this film without them. So when Naseer saab read the script, I requested him to do the film and he very graciously obliged. It was the same with Shekhar Kapurji and Kabir Bediji. It was a casting coup but the film is something… I mean, our tagline now is ‘A lethal love story’ which was earlier supposed to be ‘In their supremacy, he was an extreme’.

 HR: The script for The Xposé sequel was taking a lot of time to complete but it is now ready. Nowadays, it takes at least a year to get a good script ready and get things right. Otherwise, you tend to over-shoot and the editing, planning and pre-production take at least a year too, to give a film a grand look and simultaneously be cost-effective. And, at HR Musik, we wanted to do something in the whole module of how the Bhatt’s function in terms of the costing and give the film a grand look. I have experience in production design as I was producing TV serials and my music videos. 

So I always want to deliver a good look with the right budget. Now that it is ready, we are starting The Xposé 2 from May-June and have begun casting. In the meantime, we were ready with this script for which we got the right light in Dublin, as also the permissions and facilities. And then the cast and everything else fell in place. The challenge was to find the girl. The word ‘surroor’ has been very lucky for me and it has also been lucky for Deepika (Padukone), who was introduced in the music video. It was the same was with Hansika Motwane, who is a big name down South now. 

The girl in the film is very important and her character is very important as it is a love story and she needed to carry the songs and also get the look right.For the character of Tara Bronson Wadia, we needed not only a good performer but also a stunning looker. We auditioned a few girls and finally got our Tara. And with the action sequences in the film, it was very important that I seriously hit the gym to get into shape, which I did.

HR: A year, because to get abs naturally takes time, otherwise you can also develop them in six months. To get them naturally, one needs to follow a strict eating and exercising regimen. It took me a year to get the look.  So after The Xposé, I started working on the look and the script. I was also busy with my music, reality show and music shows. But finally the film was shot in one schedule, between September and October.

HR: Yes, Abbas Ali Moghul, our action director, gave me a lot of training. I am very grateful to him for being patient while we were practicing as it took me some time to learn the tough action scenes. We also had to make it look real.

HR: Very, but nowadays I am doing barely any music for films. I actually want to do one or two films so that I can live up to the track record of 658 songs. And this is my 100th film with T-Series. I have completed 120 films and ‘Surroor’ is a very important part of my life. It is also a huge brand name. So I have to live up to the expectations of the music. First, I used to have around 300 tunes; now I do 700-800 tunes. Now I also do ‘sampling’. I call people, sample and select 30-40 and again select eight to 10 songs so that I can live up to expectations because I don’t want to spoil my track record. The songs Bekhudiand Main woh chaand are doing very well. And we have retained Assalam vaalekum and Tanhaiyaan from the original track. We have them as background tracks in this film. So the music takes the story forward.

HR: Bhushanji was always there but he came on board once the songs and the script were locked. It was a big task to work out the costs because nowadays it’s all about pricing and this is the new mantra – to create a good product on a tight budget. That was something we designed together. Then Dublin fell into place and the rest of the cast offered tremendous support in terms of the budget.

HR: Completely. It’s not a very big-budget film and it’s been sold to distributors in various circuits in India at a very economical price. So recovery is not an issue because I am very happy with the product. I am looking forward to the film’s release as eventually it’s all about word-of-mouth publicity. We are hoping that March 11 works for us.

HR: No, it’s not a sequel. The zone of the film is the same but it is not a sequel. We have taken the brand name forward, which is very important these days and we have also taken songs from the first part. That was the story of a rockstar; this is the story of an assassin or the guy next door. He is just a car dealer for the girl and for the cops, I am the assassins but no one knows what he is all about. He is this intense guy and we get to know who he actually is only in the end. But in terms of the zone of the film… with grand visuals, overseas locations, good music, a love story with a thriller, action, a completely reinvented look for me and a different supporting cast, it is in the zone of ‘surroor’ but is not connected to the previous story in any way.

HR: These days, brand recall is very important. The background score goes Tera tera tera surroor, andAssalam vaalekum and Tanhaiyaan are there as action and romance background scores, that really helps take the story forward. We wanted to use those tracks and that is why the ideal title was Teraa Surroor. So the title is the song we have recreated and used as an integral part of the film.

HR: It has been very good in terms of my look, and the girl (Farah Karimi) is getting a very good reaction too. The casting by Kunal M Shah is being talked about, the way the film has been shot is being talked about and, of course, the music is catching on. People are saying it is a grand looking film at the right price.

HR: Naseer sir is a genius and, when he is acting, you can’t take your eyes off him. He completely gets into the skin of the character and that was something I tried to learn from him. He goes into minor details while acting. He is also a thorough professional and a very good human being. He is simply amazing as Robin Dharamraj Santino, the character he plays in the film. Shekhar Kapurji has also done a fantastic job. No one else but he could have played an Indian Ambassador so well. It was a tailor-made film for Shekharji, which he didn’t accept initially but I pursued him and he was gracious enough to say ‘yes’. It was the same with Kabir Bediji, who plays a commissioner in the film. Everyone keeps wondering whether he is a good guy or a bad guy!

HR: No, once I start acting, I don’t look into anything else. I have my team for that. But in terms of my look and production design, a lot of hard work goes into pre-production.