Young Ishaan Khatter impresses with his knowledge of the pulse of cinema, both critically acclaimed and commercial. After his searing performance in Majid Majidi’s Beyond the Clouds which impressed the festival circuit, he is now looking forward to his Bollywood debut, Dhadak which hits screens on July 20.
Interestingly he prefers to call the Dharma Productions’ film Dhadak an adaptation rather than a remake of the thumping Marathi hit, Sairat. Acknowledging that adaptations haven’t worked at the box office recently, he still believes it depends on the filmmaker’s intentions behind directing a film.
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“Director Shashank Khaitan understood that it’s such an important film for our country. Also, it is so easily adaptable into the different cultural milieu that it was important to make this film reach out to more audiences and he wanted to do it his way,” says Ishaan, about Dhadak which deals with honour killings.
Ishaan, who is part of a film family what with parents Neelima Azeem and Rajesh Khatter, and half-brother Shahid Kapoor all being actors, came prepared before he took the plunge. He shares that he did watch Sairat before shooting for Dhadak and he loved the film and was affected by it.
He says, “I understand the responsibility of all the hopes that come with it.” That said, he prefers not to think about such things when working in a creative environment because it could influence his performance. He points out, “Since we are adapting it, there’s scope to be different. It’s also been under the public eye, so it had a different journey from Sairat.”