Ananya Panday and Ishaan Khatter master the quintessential bambaiya gab for ‘Khaali Peeli’
The film, Khaali Peeli has been making headlines ever since announcement. The commercial masala entertainer brings the duo together for the first time, making it Bollywood’s youngest film. Directed by Maqbool Khan, the film features Khatter portraying the role of a local taxi driver, while Panday is seen as a girl on the run. Considering the film’s backdrop is based in Mumbai, lead stars were trained in the colloquial language of the Mumbai City.
Confirming the same, Khan revealed that Ishaan and Ananya underwent a special diction process to get into the skin of their characters. The filmmaker told, “I believe when you choose any language, one should pick a popular word which people can understand and relate to easily, and at the same time, there should be some humour and quirkiness to it. With Ishaan and Ananya, I made sure that from the day they were signed until we finished shoot we speak only in film’s native bambaiya hindi slang; Idharich, bole toh, lafda, lukha, bawaal and all such terms which one would only find in certain areas of Mumbai. So much so that Ishaan & Ananya still talk to me that way only”
Further speaking about how he trained Ananya specifically, Maqbool Khan added, “Everytime I used to be on the sets with Ananya, I would make her practice and say these words. Her character, Pooja, is a girl from a local area in south Mumbai where they have an accented Hindi spoken in a slightly rude tone “Khada boli”. She and I would improvise a lot on the sets as she is an unbelievable fast learner”
All praise for film’s director Maqbool Khan, Ishaan Khatter shared, “Maq (Maqbool bhai) is a master of the quintessential bambaiya gab. He was our tapori dictionary on the sets and we had a blast improvising on this film. The dialogues were fantastic on the page but he took it a notch above during the shoot.”
Meanwhile, calling him a great teacher and guide, Ananya Panday had something really sweet to say about the filmmaker. The young starlet said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher, guide, friend than Mac. Just the reassurance in his eyes from the very narration to the final shot in the film has helped me so much and he’s held my hand through out. Especially in the lingo which comes so naturally to him he comes up w the best one liners and had so much faith in me that I would do it – it helped me believe in myself too. And of course all the fun improvisation!”
Directed by Maqbool Khan, Khaali Peeli is produced by Himanshu Kishan Mehra, Ali Abbas Zafar and Zee Studios. It’s going to be the first ever Bollywood film to have a simultaneous multi-format release. The same would include the newly launched ‘Premium Video On Demand’ (PVOD) service called Zee Plex. With the new offering, the viewers will be able to watch the film in the comfort of their homes.