SHAHID KAPOOR: I DID 95 PER CENT OF THE FILM’S STUNTS

Diving headlong into action with Ali Abbas Zafar’s next, Shahid discusses giving a quirky yet realistic touch to the crime thriller We’ll see a lot more of Shahid Kapoor this year. While Jersey is only two days away from release, the actor will follow it up with Raj-DK’s series that marks his web debut and director Ali Abbas Zafar’s next. “I have just finished Ali’s film. All my projects this year are different from one another in terms of the filmmakers’ [sensibilities] and the characters that I am playing,” begins the actor. Tentatively titled Bloody Daddy, Zafar’s film is said to be an adaptation of the French film, Nuit Blanche (2011). The crime thriller sees Kapoor as a cop who is chasing drug lords across the city. For the actor, the project ticked two boxes — it fulfilled his desire to collaborate with Zafar whom he has known since Badmaash Company (2010) days. More importantly, it allowed him to delve into action, a genre that he had briefly dabbled in with Kaminey (2009) and R…Rajkumar (2013). “Ali understands the genre of action well, and I wanted to do something in that space. My character is not an out-of-the-box action hero that would make people wonder why he is doing this. We found a [story] where the action comes as a natural consequence of the circumstances. The character is believable and relatable, say how Bruce Willis was in Die Hard. I felt that would be the right way to [do] this genre.”

Shooting the high-octane actioner was a learning process for the actor as he performed most stunts without the aid of a body double. “I learnt a lot of new things. The first was to conserve my energy. I realised action can be tiring. I did 95 per cent of the stunts by myself. The remaining was not possible as I was not [well-trained] for it. Ali has not done this kind of an action film before; it’s edgy, quirky and real.”