This Friday, Yami Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi get entangled in an adventurous caper that takes place over the course of one night. More importantly, that happens to be the wedding night of their characters — Pratik plays an introvert veterinarian named Veer Poddar, while Yami is the outgoing and bindaas Koyal Chaddha — in Dhoom Dhaam. Before the romantic comedy with a difference arrives on Netflix on Valentine’s Day, t2 caught up with Yami and Pratik for a chat.

Dhoom Dhaam looks like a lot of fun! What appealed to the two of you?

Pratik Gandhi: It is a romcom but it also has a lot of action. It has quite a good amount of suspense and it is also a thriller. It is a mixed-genre film, and I don’t think I have done a film like this before. It is an out-and-out entertainer with a lot of layers. The story is about the most important night in anybody’s life... and everything goes wrong. You can’t even imagine what all goes wrong! (Laughs) I guess I can say on behalf of both of us that once we read the script, we felt that this film had to be made and that we had to be a part of it.
Yami Gautam Dhar: I feel this is a genre which we don’t celebrate much now. Romcom is almost a dead genre, I feel. I don’t remember a good romcom in the last 15 years, at least in Hindi. So the idea was that how does one make something unusual in that genre? At the core, Dhoom Dhaam is a love story between two strangers in an arranged marriage. We wanted to make that interesting... we wanted to refresh the genre and present something new to the audience. It is literally the story of one night and the two of us have one costume through most of the film. So what happens to that costume eventually? As the film progresses, you will see that.

It is a very simple story that we wanted to make universal. It is a new-age caper comedy/ romcom and I think Aditya (Dhar) and Aarsh (Vora, co-writers) have captured that. This is Rishab’s (Seth, director) second film. I love working with new-age directors who come in with a fresh mind and are very collaborative. It was also an absolute joy to work with Pratik. There are so many memories (of the shoot) that flash by in a second.

Is there any trait about your respective characters that made you feel that you wanted to bring it alive on screen?

Pratik: My character (Veer) has always felt that he is in control of everything.

Till that one night when he isn’t!

Pratik: Yes. But he is never in control of anything! He feels that he can always manage a situation, but he can’t...

Aren’t most men like that?

Yami: Yes, in many cases. They try to show you that they are calm and everything is under control... but there is a storm happening beneath that calmness! (Laughs) And when you can see through that, it becomes a little giggle in your mind, as if to say: ‘I know, I know, we are both in the same boat... it is okay.’

What really attracted me to this character is that she rides a bike! I was always too scared to ride a bike, forget about driving it. But to play this character (Koyal), I had to learn... and she is a girl who rides a Harley (Davidson). Koyal is a modern-age girl but she is very, very unique. There is a set pattern in Hindi films that if you want to show an outgoing or outspoken female character, she has to be brash, and she will only have a certain way of speaking, which I think has become very monotonous. It may have worked in a few films and that is where the problem lies. If something works in one or two films, then we have 20 more tailored around the same idea. Koyal is different.

Dhoom Dhaam was initially written in 2016 and was set in Delhi. It had a completely different scene and setting and lingo. But then, it was adapted to Mumbai. In it, I saw a great opportunity to portray a girl of today but with expression and body language that is unique to her and yet you still find the character relatable.

Breaking certain stereotypes with this character was tough work. I had to do a lot of homework. I had to do a lot of self-talk, give myself a pep talk. In fact, a few nights before the shoot, I told Aditya: ‘Listen, I cannot say these words because I don’t abuse in real life.’ When I signed the film, the script had a blank in terms of the abuse words and I thought I would make up some gibberish. But then I was told that I would have to say those abuses out loud! (Laughs) Even while rehearsing, I asked if some lines could be changed but I was told that they couldn’t.

I understood that those lines are integral to the plot and who Koyal is. They haven’t been put in with the intention of sensationalising anything. But when you watch it in the film, even if it is with family, you won’t feel awkward. The treatment is such. Koyal did give me a tough time, but I am grateful for it. Eventually, she became mine and I love her. She is one of the best characters I have ever played.

Pratik, what was it like hearing Yami abuse?

Pratik: I was enjoying, completely! I knew she wasn’t comfortable but the moment she had to say them, the actor in her took over. But we did have moments when she would say her other lines with ease, but her voice level would go down once the abuses came in.

Then, there are retakes, so I told her in one of the takes to say those lines with full-fledged force, otherwise she would have to give multiple retakes and, hence, abuse multiple times. I told her: ‘Say it in one go. We are in the car and I am the only one listening.’ I was the only one listening in the car and the director was listening on his headphones. She prepped, prepped, prepped and said it all in one go. And what did the director say? ‘Very good! Let’s do one more!’ (Both laugh)
Yami: I was like: ‘Why one more?!’ He said: ‘Now you have confidence, your flow will be better!’ I believe he just wanted to have fun hearing me say all that because initially, I had given him a tough time saying I would say gibberish but not abuse. In the end, I did it because I knew that it was important to the story.

Based on what plays out in the trailer, how would you react if your respective real-life partners wanted to monitor your social media habits?

Yami: Uske liye mujhe social media pe hona chahiye jo main hoti hi nahin hoon.
Pratik: I think I will just hand over my phone to her (wife Bhamini Oza) and tell her: ‘Please see what’s happening on my social media feed, check my messages’. I am sure that in a few days she will get pakaoed and give up! (Laughs)
Yami: While I do follow quite a few information-based handles on social media — things like science and all that — I also like to listen to or watch some of the silliest content possible, simply because it relaxes me and it is entertaining. I don’t think I would want any eyeballs on that! Sometimes you just want some silly humour, something really stupid, which is totally opposite to the kind of perception there is of you. Those are my guilty pleasures.

The film is based around a wedding — a dhoom dhaam one, in all ways possible. Pratik, what was your wedding like?

Pratik: We wanted to get married in a temple but there were no temples in Vile-Parle East (in Mumbai) where one could have a wedding inside. There was a temple with a ground adjacent to it which was part of the temple itself. That is where we got married, in 2008.

Mumbai traffic is bad and since I had been stuck in many traffic jams because of wedding processions, I wanted to avoid that for my own. I convinced my family and friends that we wouldn’t do anything like this and that we would walk and reach the venue. It was just two lanes away so that wouldn’t have been a problem. But still, a friend had called a band waala from somewhere and before I knew it, my baaraatis decided to start dancing on the road. It was then left to me to manage the crowd and cars. So dressed as a groom, I became a traffic guide at my own wedding!
Yami: That is classic Pratik! I can completely visualise that scene! ‘Yeh mat karo, idhar se jao, udhar se mat jao!’ I can imagine how he must have been apologising to people on the road! (Laughs)
Pratik: All people could see was a groom going: ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’

Yami, unlike your Bollywood peers, you had a very simple wedding...

Yami: Yes. Both Aditya and I were more sure about what we didn’t want to do versus what we wanted to do. Fortunately, we could have the kind of wedding that we had dreamt of. We were both very much aligned. It wasn’t like, one said: ‘Oh, I want this kind of wedding.’ And the other said: ‘But why do you want this kind of wedding?’ We both wanted a very simple wedding. We also knew that no matter how much we do, we couldn’t make everyone happy.

The girl’s family, especially, gets entangled in these formalities. When do they get time to absorb and enjoy the rituals? We followed the customs, we had people close to us singing and dancing, but we didn’t want to do anything that would be more for other people than for us. Our wedding had only 12 family members. The venue was only five steps down from our kitchen. It was beautiful.