Mudassar Aziz says no cheap thrills in his film
Ensemble comedies aren’t easy to pull off. But director Mudassar Aziz knows a thing or two about keep it sane.
“I love to take upon these things on myself as I have been a fan of Hrishida [director Hrishikesh Mukherjee] films. My brand of humour is borrowed from
Chupke Chupke, Bawarchi, but my casting pattern is something on the lines of
Naseeb, Amar Akbar Antony — where it’s more the merrier [actors]. And while studying, I grew up on Shakespeare. So the joy of bringing all the actors together excites me ... But it isn’t a logistical nightmare,” said Aziz.
The sequel to the 2016 comedy is now transplanted to China and the actors are all battling a chaotic mistaken identity scenario.
The sequel is set in China and the trailer seems to poke fun at the Chinese indicating that Bollywood continues to get its cheap thrills from xenophobic jokes. Were you careful about not going overboard?
If you see Happy Bhag Jayegi [the original], a certain element of sense of humour while making a cross-border comedy has to be retained and that’s imperative. If you see films in Hollywood where Canada or Mexico or South America is spoken about, you will realise that cross-cultural comedy usually finds its breeding ground in nuances of other
cultures. It is important for a filmmaker to be sensitive about where to draw the line. But at the same time, it is also important to have a bit of a fun element with your neighbour. It is not just about laughing at the neighbour here. Even in Happy
Bhag Jayegi [where an Indian bride ends up in its neighbouring country Pakistan], there was ample opportunity for the neighbour [Pakistan] to laugh at us [India]. As long as one is allowing the healthy osmosis to take place where I can crack a joke at you, but you can crack a joke at me as well then it means you are doing it responsibly.
Why did you cast Sonakshi Sinha in a film which saw its original being dominated by Diana Penty? Does it send the message that Diana wasn’t enough to draw in the crowds for the second one?
Absolutely not. I would work with Diana 10 times over and I have such healthy relationship with her. You will understand me immediately when I say that if a plot is based on mistaken identities, you are going to need to have another actor. You can’t say that somebody’s identity has been mistaken for another — unless I make the grave mistake of pushing Diana in a double role... From the word go, Happy Phirr Bhaag Jayegi is a mistaken identity plot and we knew that we had one Happy in the bag, and we had to cast another Happy and that’s where Sonakshi came in.
And I have told others [journalists] that Sonakshi, when she was signed for Happy..., wasn’t going through the best phase of her career either.