Hitesh bats for LGBTQ
A writer for 20 years, having scripted hours on television as well as the film Shubh Mangal Saaavdhan, Hitesh Kewalya will make his directorial debut with the film Shubh Mangal Zyaada Saavdhan (SMS), starring Ayushmann Khurrana.
The debutant did have Khurrana in the back of his head when he wrote his film, but did not tailor the script for him.
“When I write, I try not to keep any specific actor in mind. It helps me to be free. Ayushmann brings a certain kind of vulnerability that is required to portray real character found amongst us. Definitely there was an idea that he might be on board because he had done
SMS and we are making a franchise. The idea was to write the script first and then talk. He was excited with the premise and wanted to play a character like that when we spoke before writing. The moment the script was finished, we narrated it to him and he agreed,” says Kewalya, who after years of writing TV and a film, opted for an offbeat subject to make his debut as a director. “It was a difficult call to make and to write this as a debut film. Very soon, I realised that the only way to break any stereotype is to do your own script. Being a heterosexual person, I was not sure if I could write about the LGBTQ in a sensitive manner. I have known friends, but I could never know what was in their mind. I was only told what was in it and I come from a homophobic society. And the only way we get people to accept the LGBTQ is to normalise and scream from rooftops. I wanted to show a mirror to all of us as a society. This is what we have grown up in and this is what our conditioning is. But the time has come to look back rectify those conversations and give the audience a take-back,” he explains.
The writer-director aspires to make films that elicit change in the society. “I knew I had to be sensitive and I had to responsible for a lot of friends. But then as for the others, no matter how homophobic they are, they do not mean any harm, but we have to deal with their conditioning over all these years and to sensitise them as well,” Kewalya concludes.
— Sanskriti Media