‘I like to keep drama out of my real life’
Abhay Deol has never shied away from telling it like it is, and his latest film What Are The Odds? takes a similar approach in telling the coming-of-age story of a young boy and a girl. The Megha Ramaswamy directorial, which is now on Netflix, initially premiered at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) in 2019.
When asked about his experience taking the film to IFFLA, Abhay says it was a unique experience. “The best part of the screening at IFFLA was to see the audience react to all the comedy in the film.
All the punch lines got a laugh and everyone said that the film is good, and that it was very unexpected coming out of India,” he shares.
The actor is known to call out his own industry for bad behaviour, be it fairness creams or, most recently, nepotism. He attributes his inclination towards speaking up to a multitude of factors. “I don’t think it can be attributed to just one thing. It’s an accumulation of being born in one country, studying in another, growing up in a particular environment,
Anurag Kashyap experiencing new ones, being open to everything, knowing when to judge and when not to. Essentially, having a life,” he chuckles, adding, “I like to keep drama out of my real life since I play with it in my reel life. I look for simple solutions to complex problems.” Abhay’s relaxed attitude towards drama can be seen as recently as a few days ago when filmmaker Anurag Kashyap said that it was “painfully difficult” to work with him on Dev D (2009) and that they haven’t spoken since. “He (Anurag) apologised and I forgave him,” says a nonchalant Abhay about the incident. Meanwhile, the Aisha actor is working on a variety of upcoming projects. “I shot for a 10-episode limited series for Hotstar, which they will be announcing. An American horror film, for which I am the executive producer, is in post-production. I have one film as a producer and actor, which is in early preparation, and I have a script in development. There are scripts that I am reading as an actor as well but I haven't signed them yet,” he shares before signing off.