Abhishek Bachchan says ‘no attempt to whitewash’ Harshad Mehta in The Big Bull
Abhishek Bachchan is set to play a fictionalised version of infamous stockbroker Harshad Mehta in The Big Bull.
His chararacter is called Hemant Shah in the movie. Abhishek has said that the movie doesn’t glorify or whitewash Harshad.
Abhishek said that the film presents the character as a flawed man, who occasionally slips up.
“Hemant Shah, my character, is a flawed one. I don’t know if
I agree entirely with the fact that the moral responsibility of the subject is on the writers. They are storytellers and they shouldn’t bother with morality.
When we - producers, actors and the director steps in, that’s when the moral responsibility steps in. Do you deify this man or do you humanise? I was clear in my initial discussions that if he is aspirational, he has to be shown as a flawed man. If everything about him was to be heroic, he’d be uni-dimensional.
He has human frailties and I like the fact that he slips,” he said, speaking with Mid-Day.
“We have come of age as an audience. We want our heroes to be real and flawed. Hemant is from a chawl and then owns an apartment with a swimming pool in the balcony. It’s easy to take a stand on this guy but what makes him interesting, for me, is that we show him for who he is. Moral responsibility comes in when you are making a film for a larger audience and the team has made no attempt to whitewash him,” he added.
Abhishek has been drawing comparisons with Pratik Gandhi’s performance in the hit streaming series Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story.
Speaking with Bollywood Hungama, Abhishek said that he is used to being compared to others.
“I don’t think I’m worthy of being compared to Pratik. I think he did a fantastic job, and I wish him all the best for his future endeavours,” he said. He also shared that he has watched the show and thoroughly enjoyed it.