Spin, Disney International’s first Indian original with an Indian-American lead and an Indian story at its heart, premieres on Disney International HD and Disney+Hotstar Premium this Independence Day at noon. The film — directed by Manjari Makijany, who directed Skater Girl, another film with a young girl at the centre — follows Rhea (Avantika Vandanapu), an Indian-American teen who learns she has a passion for creating DJ mixes that blend Indian sounds with Western music. A story of dreams and courage, Spin has Abhay Deol starring as Rhea’s father Arvind, in what is a big leap for the actor in his unconventional career graph. Over a recent Zoom call, The Telegraph caught up with Abhay to know more.

When you recently put out the teaser of Spin on your social media handles, you said that this is “out of your status quo”. What made you say that and what were the factors that made you sign this film?

I don’t do so much in terms of work that’s children-centric. Most of my work is dramatic, dark, comic, edgy.... That’s why I pointed that out. But that wasn’t the primary reason why I signed Spin. I loved the script. I loved the representation, what it speaks for the (Indian) community in the US, Manjari (Makijany) the director... those were some of the reasons I took it on.

You just spoke about representation. Do you think India and the Indian diaspora is now better and most importantly, more diversely represented in films in the West?

We definitely have a long way to go. This film comes really far, it takes us on the path of being represented more realistically and less stereotyped. It also has Indian characters at the front and centre, and I think Disney has done that very well. It’s time the studios support the various communities that make up the United States. It’s a country of immigrants, and I think Spin represents that really well. It has put us on the right path but as I said, we do have a long way to go in exploring diversity, not just in communities but people within those communities, because there are both good and bad in every community.

It’s good that Disney has started out by exploring a young Indian story and the fact that it’s a family-oriented channel helps. It’s one of the nicer and better platforms to explore the Indian community or for that matter, any ethnic community. It’s a good place to start, for sure.

Abhay Deol with his Spin co-star Avantika Vandanapu Sourced by the correspondent

You aren’t a father. But could you relate, in some way, to this character of a father who supports his daughter’s out-of-the-box dream?

Well, I inherently inhabit the skin of characters who are not like me, and then I look for a thread to relate to. For example, in my film Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, I play a thief, but I am not one in real life! (Laughs) People tell me I am charming, and this guy I played could charm his way into stealing anything. He wanted to break through at any cost, and I wanted to break the stereotype of Bollywood. I was ambitious in the sense of going away from the mainstream and trying to put together films that represented other ideas and other individuals. These aspects bound me to the character. And you look for threads to relate to because you play both good and bad characters. We all try to be good humans in life — or believe we are — so when you get a bad character, how do you relate to that? So the key is to find something common and then explore who this person is in relationship to the plot and the other characters.

With Spin, this whole thread of the Indian immigrant in the US trying to find his space and make a life for himself was relatable. He may not sound like the normal American. For example, my sisters have lived in America much more than they have in India, but they sound like me. I like that about my character Arvind in Spin. He is American, but he doesn’t sound American. I could also relate to him through my sisters and their children.

What was the experience of working on this film like?

The sad thing is that we are in the middle of Covid and we shot on a closed set in Toronto. We had to take our masks off at the call of ‘action’ and put them back again at ‘cut’. Working in a pandemic, the physical impediments of the whole experience was the first thing that struck me. Also, being a kids’ film, it was lighter and easier... I had to hold my performance back a little bit. I always had it in my mind that we are catering to a much younger audience, and so the intensity had to be calmed down a little bit. One didn’t need to scream at the top of one’s voice, just being a little firm would do.... you know, stuff like that. You don’t want to scream at children, right? (Laughs)

Is shooting in the new normal something that you have taken in your stride easily?

We must, we have to. We have to do our part. It’s a new world out there, there’s going to be a new normal. So instead of letting that weigh heavy upon us, we have to say, ‘Okay, what good can this lead to?’ I don’t have an answer, actually. We just have to adjust our attitudes and try and look for the positives. The environment is getting cleaner, sense of community is much stronger, the idea of being one race and a small planet is much more obvious to us... I am trying to be positive about it.

You have always moved away from conventional Bollywood and created a niche for yourself. Will Spin mark a new chapter for you and a complete departure from hardcore Bollywood?

I never did hardcore Bollywood, honestly. I came in at a time when multiplexes were just coming up and I did new-age Bollywood like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Dev.D and Manorama (Six Feet Under). For a brief period at that time, we had more exhibition space than we did in terms of product. But multiplexes are physical entities and they soon got taken over by the studios.

Now because the OTT platforms have come in, we have exhibition space that’s endless. While they will concentrate on mainstream content, they will also entertain people like me because they have the space to open up to new and unconventional ideas.

It’s definitely becoming easier to now do what I did five-10 years ago. It’s democratised a lot more, let’s put it that way. The kind of film that I have done with Disney, the films I did with Netflix would never be done by Bollywood. I took many stands and had many repercussions. I was vulnerable in many ways, but I stuck to my stand and now I am glad that technology gives me that space and freedom to do what I have always wanted to do.