What a year Varun Dhawan has been having! After his career-defining work in Shoojit Sircar’s exquisite October, the actor is preparing for the release of Sui Dhaaga: Made in India. Inspired by the government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, the film is directed by Sharat Katariya of Dum Laga Ke Haisha fame and also stars Anushka Sharma. The film revolves around the life and struggles of Mauji (played by Varun) and his wife Mamta (played by Anushka Sharma) who are skilled labourers looking to make their craft their livelihood. t2 sat down with the actor at the office of Yash Raj Films in Mumbai recently to talk about his collaboration with Anushka and seeing a ‘new’ India through the September 28 film.

You started the year with October and now Sui Dhaaga looks so promising!

This year has been tremendous. Even for the film industry, this year has been better than last year, because films have been doing so well and it’s a great time to be an actor. Last year wasn’t that great for the industry, though it was a good year for me. I’ve never seen a film of mine succeed the way October did, and all credit to Shoojitda for that. Sui Dhaaga is the kind of film that gets art and commerce together. It’s mass and class at the same time, and I can’t praise the writing enough. The way it’s been written, the dialogues and the screenplay —  just reading it evoked so many emotions. I was laughing and giggling, there is drama. As an actor, I just knew I had to play this role. 

It’s interesting that you react this way while Anushka’s first reaction after reading the script was very different.

Yeah! Her role is very different and challenging.

You mentioned last year wasn’t good for Bollywood. The industry is clearly going through a crisis of sorts where we need to tell newer stories...

Absolutely. Especially with digital looming large over us, there is an audience that might get away. For example, October did so well on Amazon (Prime Video) when it released because it found such a large audience base there. They got good money for putting it over there, and for filmmakers, that’s becoming a good thing. But for mainstream commercial actors now, if you’re not telling stories differently, there is a fear because you’re directly competing with that as well.

Does that play on your mind while selecting roles and films?

If you look at my career, I probably tuned this mindset very early on. Student of the Year was followed by an out-and-out comedy Main Tera Hero. I did a romantic film, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, and then came Badlapur. I’ve always wanted to keep people guessing. The intrigue is important because I wouldn’t want to go to a theatre and watch an actor doing the same film over and over again. 

How easy is it for you to make that decision because you’re not just an actor, you’re a star?

It’s easy because I’m someone who gets bored very easily. If I’m bored of my work, it’ll show. If I’m on a set where I’m doing something or working with someone I’m unhappy with, I’ll probably start breaking things and cry; I just can’t do that. 

Before working on this film, you didn’t know Anushka. How did you go about breaking the ice?

Work, I think, was the ice breaker, and also humour. We just got each other’s humour, and were cracking up on weird stuff. She’s an extremely funny person in real life, and then her choices have also been so different. I really appreciate her body of work and she appreciates mine.

It was amazing we came together for a film like Sui Dhaaga, which ticked so many of the boxes. It has so many commercial elements where you can showcase your performance, and other facets of your acting. I’m doing comedy but it’s different from what I have done before. Anushka was a great judge for the scenes that were working and those that weren’t. She’d let me improvise and do things differently, and artistically it was great to team up because I do think she’s brought out something new in me as a co-actor. Sharat is someone who loves performance — he’d egg me on to not hold back, do 11-12 takes and then he’d zero in on what works.

This film clearly takes you into a space that you’ve not done before. Does that keep you on your toes throughout?

Yes. There’s no point doing a film where I can relax and say, ‘I can do this’. In every film, there is a time when I started getting things right and that really excited me — you know when things are working and you’re in the zone. By the time I did the dog scene for this film, I just knew what I was going to do. I didn’t even have to prepare for that scene.

This is a film that’s taken you to a part of India that you’d not seen or experienced before. Did you experience or get to know about things that you didn’t know?

There was so much. The characters live in a house where there was no AC, for one. It was cold and hot at the same time — very foggy in the morning. Also, riding a cycle on pebbled streets is not so easy; people take a train, then ride by cycle to get to their jobs. It’s a one-and-a-half-hour to two-hour route to get there and by the time you’re back, it’s almost 9pm, so you eat and sleep. It’s a different life. No matter how much you love your wife, she’s in a ghoonghat and you can’t even hold hands in front of your parents. But there’s so much love and emotion, and how they profess their love without physicality is key. These things were very surprising. The other thing was not being educated, or not having access to education, yet being street-smart enough to do anything in life and becoming entrepreneurs. Their resilience is amazing.

How do you get into the mindset of a character that’s so far removed socially and economically from your own reality?

His name is Mauji, and whatever he did is ‘mauj se’. He knows how to keep himself happy, no matter what the situation is; he knows how to entertain himself. There is a person like that somewhere in me, so I can’t say that was very difficult for me. The dialect was difficult, but the inherent quality of wanting to entertain was easy. I’ve done a dialect before in Badri (Badrinath Ki Dulhania) but this was more intricate; I had to go through a lot of coaching to get it right. 

Do you enjoy learning new things for your films?

Yes, I do. Apart from dialects, learning new skills like the sewing machine was a lot of fun. I even danced differently in this film — there was no choreographer, I made that up. Sharat asked me to do what came naturally, and I went back to Namak Halal and the visuals of Amitabh Bachchan were running through my head.

At the trailer launch, you said that, ‘Patriotism doesn’t need to be expressed but felt’, which is very different for the times that we live in and the kind of movies we are making.

I love the films we make and I enjoy those as well. I just feel, you don’t have to keep saying, ‘I love India’; the important thing is to feel it in your heart. Anyone can say anything in this day and age, but really feeling it is more important. This is the kind of film that will make you feel something, and in a really cool and nice way. The film deals with so many things, but very subtly — the patriarchy in our society, when a male ego takes a bashing and taking a woman’s advice. That can rattle people in so many parts of the world, where a woman changes a man’s life. I’ve seen that with my parents, where my dad (director David Dhawan) has taken advice from my mom and it’s changed his career for the better — he always gives her due credit. 

Talking about your family, there’s a new addition! How much has life changed since your niece was born?

(Laughs) It’s her house — she’s the boss. Everything goes by her. She’s only 55 days old, so obviously she’s too young to watch the Sui Dhaaga trailer but I still wanted to play it for her. It was so cool to see her react when I was saying the dialogues. This is the first film that’s being released in the family since her birth. She’s really amazing. The joy she’s given my father and seeing my brother (Rohit) and bhabhi (Jaanvi) like that — it’s just so much fun. It’s like the weather changes when you’re around her.

Are the wedding bells ringing for you soon?

(Laughs) They’re ringing everywhere for everyone. I don’t think I need to ring any at the moment.

I am looking forward to Sui Dhaaga because...

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