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| Pulkit Samrat in Bittoo Boss |
You are best known as Lakshya Virani in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. How did Bittoo Boss happen?
It came out of the blue! I was doing TV and was waiting for my big break. I was getting offers here and there, but nothing that really had me excited or challenged me as an actor. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door and this film fell on my lap. Since then, there has been no looking back. People are appreciating the promos. They are seeing the potential in me. I am getting comments like: ‘After a long time, an absolute newcomer and an outsider to the industry is making us sit up and take notice’. It makes me feel very good and at the same time, I am nervous as hell.
From the promos, Bittoo seems like a fun film...
Bittoo is basically a launda (a wayward youngster) from a small pind (village) in Punjab. He is a videographer who shoots wedding videos and he takes pride in it because he is very good at his job. He is so good that people postpone their functions if Bittoo can’t give them dates! Bittoo is a rockstar, or at least that’s what he thinks he is. Until the day he meets a girl (played by Amita Pathak) who shows him the mirror and he realises that he isn’t quite the dude he thought he was.
How easy or difficult was it to play a character like that?
It was as easy as it was difficult. Easy because I am from a Punjabi background and that helped in fitting into the atmosphere. However, getting the typical pind accent spot-on was a huge challenge. The Punjabi spoken by a person from Delhi is very different from the kind that’s spoken in the villages in Punjab.
Moreover, I am very soft-spoken off-screen and to portray someone who is rustic and rough and who mouths a lot of cuss words was a little difficult. I had to be this ruffian and yet be charming enough. I also had to learn how to shoot videos and hold a camera properly. I had to come across as someone who had been using a video camera for at least 10 to 15 years.
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| Pulkit Samrat in Bittoo Boss |
What was the shooting experience like?
We had a lot of fun. Amita and I used to fight a lot off camera and as soon as the shot was ready, we became this very-much-in-love couple! One night, I got together with the rest of the crew and acted like a ghost and really scared her out of her wits. It was really funny.
Was it discouraging when the first promos ran into trouble with the censor board because of the language?
It wasn’t discouraging at all because it actually brought our film into focus. The idea was to get noticed and that’s what happened. The language that you hear in the film is what people mouth in real life. We have made a good and clean film that will hopefully bring a smile to everyone’s lips. Bittoo Boss is the first Indian film to get PG-13 certification.
You are being hailed as the next Ranveer Singh…
It feels good to be compared to Ranveer Singh because he has done very well in a very short time. I look at it as a compliment, but Bittoo Boss will give me my own identity.
