This year marks the Bollywood debut of two of the most sought after industry kids, Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter. The two are making an entry into Bollywood with Dharma Productions' next, Dhadak, directed by Shashank Khaitan.
The director who has earlier helmed Dharma's successful Dulhania franchise, says he wanted to make an adaptation of hit Marathi film, Sairat, and therefore as soon as he watched the Nagraj Manjule directorial, he called up Karan Johar and proposed the idea of Dhadak.
With new actors and an expectations of making another colourful hit drama, it wasn't easy for Shashank to helm Dhadak. What also added to the struggle was actress Sridevi's sudden demise, who is Janhvi' mother. Shashank though says that he 'salutes' the professionalism of Janhvi for not paving any deterrent in the shoot of Dhadak and behaving as professional as she could.
Talking about the same to a leading daily, the director said, "In the wake of the tragedy we tried to keep the atmosphere on the set as normal as possible, knowing that the more we tried to sympathise with Janhvi, the more the situation would affect her. We kept the focus on work and not on what had happened knowing that time is the best healer. I salute her courage".
He also maintains that though he was working with two new actors, he was sure both of them will be able to pull off the film on their shoulders. He said, "My actors were instructed to stay with the script for six months. They just kept reading and absorbing every word, not just their scenes but the entire film. I wanted them to know the script like the back of their hand so that if they needed to incorporate an extra word they would know enough to pull it off".
Dhadak releases on July 20.
