Dhanush on Atrangi Re: ‘Aanand L Rai told me to bring my madness to the character and that is what I have tried’-Entertainment News , Firstpost

Pan-Indian actor and South superstar Dhanush is back with his next acting stint in Hindi cinema with Atrangi Re – the actor’s second film with Aanand L Rai touted to be a complicated story about love and its madness. The two-time National Award-winning actor, best known for Tamil films such as Aadukalam, 3, Maari, Asuran, Karnan, forayed into Bollywood with the 2013 romantic-drama Raanjhanaa, helmed by Rai. His performance as Kundan, an obsessive man who has an unrequited love for his neighbor Zoya (Sonam Kapoor), in the film won him a lot of praise from critics and the audience. He then worked alongside Amitabh Bachchan in R Balki’s 2015 satirical drama Shamitabh.

The key reason Dhanush chose Atrangi Re to return to Hindi cinema after a gap of six years, he says, is Rai and writer Himanshu Sharma.

“The director and writer attracted me to the project and that is all, and later came the script.”

“Himanshu always comes up with this atrangi script and I love being part of something that is not very normal. Also, I love Rai’s sensibilities. He is a brilliant technician. I love his process…the way he paints a painting and the way he makes you believe that the painting is real, he makes you believe that the world is real, makes you part of the magic and you won’t even realize, you won’t even understand what happened and suddenly the magic is there. He is a master craftsman,” says Dhanush.

But when it comes to other projects, the actor is far more particular. “Send me the book is my first demand. If I like the book then I don’t care who, what, where…I just do it. Next, I look at the screenplay and the third thing is how much can people connect with the characterisation, and if all these things convince me I go ahead. Sometimes I am absolutely right, sometimes I am absolutely wrong like anybody,” says Dhanush. And when he goes wrong, it is a “painful process”. “You feel the story is something and when you walk in it you realize you have got stuck in the wrong story (chuckles). I stick to it but with a lot of pain. I honor my commitment no matter what but I would like to do a story where my heart is,” he adds.

But what took the actor so long to return to Hindi cinema? “Everything has to fall in place; you have to land the right script. But when a good script came to me I was held up somewhere else, I missed some beautiful stories here in Bollywood. It is a big process. I am doing a lot of films down South. Rai came to me with Atrangi but he gave me one-year advance notice. He told me that he would need me at this time and I blocked those days. I have now made a mental note to do more and do at least one Hindi film a year. I, Rai, and Himanshu are constantly brainstorming, there are a lot of lines, a lot of stories…” he says.

Expressing excitement over crossover of various film industries in India, while crediting his father-in-law, superstar Rajinikanth and the mammoth success of S S Rajamouli’s two-part epic war saga Baahubali film series (for transporting pan-Indian cinema to international shores), Dhanush says,  “Creative and cultural exchanges is a healthy sign for the entertainment sector in the country at large. It is a very beautiful and healthy time; it is a really nice and very beautiful evolution. It is helping all of us with our films, actors, and creative people globally, I am looking forward to some exciting times ahead.”

And for someone who didn’t want to become an actor, going global again is definitely a big deal. Dhanush, who has previously starred in 2018’s English-language film, The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir teams up with Hollywood stars Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in the Netflix movie The Gray Man directed by the Russo Brothers of Avengers: Endgame fame. “The Gray Man is a great opportunity to learn, explore new territory, and understand world cinema better. For a guy who didn’t even want to become an actor, landing a project like that is nothing short of a blessing. Mahadev is kind to me,” says Dhanush, who had earlier said that (as a 16-year-old) he was forced into acting by his father and he never expected he could come this far. He made his acting debut in the 2002 Tamil film Thulluvatho Ilamai, directed by his father Kasthuri Raja. His second film, Kadhal Kondein, which released a year later, was helmed by his brother Selvaraghavan.

Atrangi Re, also starring Sara Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar, follows the story of a Bihari woman named Rinku Suryavanshi (Khan), who is in love with Sajjad (Kumar) but she is forced to marry Vishu (Dhanush). “I am not playing anything new as you must have seen actors playing these kinds of roles before. People might be thinking it is a love triangle, but it is fresh and unusual as the title suggests. Audiences would be surprised. The film has a lot of humor in it and I believe that comedy is a very difficult thing to perform. But we as a team have done well, we are very confident. I pretty much followed the director’s vision, he described to me the zone he is looking out for and he told me to bring my madness to the character and that is what I have tried. Hope it works,” says Dhanush.

He continues, “But this character is tailor-made for Sara. She is very hardworking, very sincere, and very dedicated. Rinku is a very difficult character to play and for someone who has done just four films, she has done really well. If you see my films in the early stage, you will find me really stupid. If I had got to play Rinku then, I don’t think I would have played it so well. The next generation kids are very smart, they learn quickly (snaps his finger) and I am very happy for Sara. Rinku will be with her for a while.”

Akshay Kumar who is said to have less screen time in the film has repeatedly said that he didn’t even have a flicker of doubt to be part of a film led by Dhanush and Sara, to which the south star says, “If Akshay Kumar says that the film belongs to me and Sara, it shows his vision..how clear he is and how well he understands the script when he listens to it. It is magnanimous of him to put it like that. But we are all in Rai’s film and that is how I look at it. It was really cool working with Akshay. He has amazing energy and so much positivity around him. I learned a lot of discipline from him…from starting early in the morning, following a strict diet, working out regularly, he is so fit. It is not easy.”

Dhanush may not be into body and physique building but he is happy being relatable to his fans which he feels is his greatest USP. “Yes, that is my strength, my USP. If I am given a choice I would work on my body and become all macho but I wish this kind of exposure to fitness was there when I was in my early 20’s, then it would have made a big difference. Now I am in my late thirties…it may sound like an excuse but it would have made a difference then. I am not doing all that because it is a very difficult task…workout regularly, diet, train every day, hit the gym, suffer and get those damn six-packs…getting that is also fine but to maintain that is another level of pain. There are a lot of sacrifices involved and I have huge respect for those who can do it. I just can’t do it and that is the truth,” he says.

Actor, scriptwriter, lyricist, singer, producer, and director, Dhanush wears many hats. He directed 17 short films before he made his directorial debut with Pa Paandi, in 2017. But he knows how to put the director in him on a leash when he is working with other directors. “I don’t interfere. I let the director do his job and I let the director in me help the actor in me,  so, ‘he’ tells the actor you could approach this way, try adding this line here or trying taking this pause here. ‘He’ helps the actor but it stops there,” he says.

And after Rai, one director in Bollywood Dhanush is keen on working with for a very long time is Raju Hirani. “Hirani is still on the top of my list of directors. I would love to be in a Hirani world as I call it because every time I walk out of a Hirani film I feel life is beautiful, it is me who complicates it. He gives you that feeling, he spreads so much positivity through his films, it is absolutely mindblowing. I am not the kind of actor who actually says that I want to work with someone but with Hirani I am shameless. I haven’t told him to this extent. I have told him that I like his work in a very shy way,” says Dhanush.

Further, recalling the halting of the Atrangi shoot last March due to covid induced lockdown, Dhanush says it was a traumatic period. “The entire first schedule went into us settling down and getting into the skin of the character, understanding the world and we were just there. But as we were going to dive into the world, the lockdown happened which was very heart-breaking. We didn’t do anything for about six months and it was really very traumatic. Then post lockdown to follow so many safety precautions was also quite painful. We suffered but we eventually made a beautiful film. The film will make you very happy. Long after the film is over you will come out smiling,” he says..

Since Dhanush has often said that he has the tendency of taking certain characters home, the actor signs off saying, “There are certain characters that stick with you but Atrangi wasn’t like that. Kundan (his character in Raanjhanaa) stayed with me for a while but it was very easy to disconnect from Atrangi’s Vishu.” Produced by Bhushan Kumar of T-Series, Rai’s Colour Yellow Productions, and Kumar’s Cape of Good Films, Atrangi Re will be released on 24 December on the streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.