THE SECRET IS OUT!
Surprise cameos in two releases thrill audiences
Cameos have come to be highly publicised aspects of a film — but two films that released this week, one in the theatres and the other on OTT — featured cameos which came as a surprise to audiences.
In An Action Hero starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Akshay Kumar does a cameo, and Qala, released on OTT, has a lovely song pictured on Anushka Sharma.
An Action Hero directed by Anirudh Iyer and produced by Aanand L. Rai has a scene where Ayuhsmann flies from India to London to escape arrest, in which Akshay does a cameo which was kept a secret till audiences saw it on Friday. (Akshay had also done an elongated cameo in the previous Aanand L. Rai directorial Atrangi Re.) Anushka Sharma was the original producer of Qala but withdrew from the production company. The film directed by Anvita Dutt starring Babil Khan and Tripti Dimri is produced by her brother Karnessh Sharma. In the song featuring Anushka, she looks like a heroine from the 1930s and 1940s — the period in which the film is set.
“It is very important to have some surprise element for the audiences. In the olden days, no one publicised cameos and the audience would be thrilled when they saw the feature, which used to be called a ‘special appearance’ or a ‘guest appearance.’ The audience ended up getting more than they expected, and that is what happened with these films too,” says Atul Mohan, editor, Complete Cinema. “The audience is pleasantly surprised and that will help the word-of-mouth publicity for the films. It is a great idea to woo the audiences back to watching movies,” he adds.