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| Prosenjit at a press meet on Shanghai in Calcutta |
The lip-lock is initiated by Kalki. This is a very intense, passionate and emotional love-making scene... they fight, there’s a bit of physical maarpit too, and then they kiss. |
After a long time, I have done a film in a different language, and that’s why Shanghai is very important to me. It has a good director, good co-actors and it will reach out to a wider national audience. That is the primary reason why I did this film.
It’s not that with this film I am looking at starting a career in Bollywood, neither was it any kind of a challenge for me. I didn’t do this film to prove a point... whatever I have learnt in Bengali cinema is very important to me. I loved working in Shanghai and that is what matters to me.
Here, the whole of Bombay is plastered with [posters of] Shanghai. There’s a great buzz, people are calling me to say that my work is fantastic!
Besides, I feel Dibakar (Banerjee, the director) too wanted to take the next step with Shanghai. Till now, he has made very good but small films. This one is a big film... it has grandeur, a star cast and some great music. It was a huge step for Dibakar too. It was a young team, like Srijit’s (Mukherji), and I loved working with them. And all of us did a LOT of workshops.
Most of my scenes in Shanghai are with Kalki (Koechlin). [Prosenjit plays Dr Ali Ahmadi, a social activist who is in a relationship with Kalki’s character. The film also stars Emraan Hashmi and Abhay Deol]. She is pretty, young and a very smart girl. Since neither of us spoke Hindi, we worked on the language from the very first day.
The lip-lock in the film [which is a rage online] is initiated by Kalki. Before doing the scene, we did a lot of workshops. This is a very intense, passionate and emotional love-making scene... they fight, there’s a bit of physical maarpit too, and then they kiss.
There were a number of takes for this one shot. At one point, when blood oozed from my lips, Kalki actually started trembling... she broke into tears, thinking that she had hurt me! And that is exactly what Dibakar had wanted in the scene.... For an actor, it can be very difficult.
But I must say that there is a lot to learn from them... this young team. The way they do their workshops is something we need to start doing in Calcutta too, since a lot of different kinds of films have started happening here. I have learnt a lot working in this film.
And I hope you all watch the film!
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