Ishaan Khatter: Never saw any of my characters as heroes

Ishaan Khatter and Ananya Panday

"It's a funny position to be in," admits Ishaan Khatter, who has been waiting for the past five months to complete a day's shoot and call it a wrap on Khaali Peeli. The endless wait seems all the more unbearable for the actor who counts the Maqbool Khan-directed venture as his first brush with mainstream Hindi cinema. Cherry-picking projects such as Majid Majidi's Beyond the Clouds (2017), Shashank Khaitan's Dhadak (2018) and Mira Nair's A Suitable Boy, Khatter believes he has stayed away from the trappings of a Bollywood hero, so far. "It's my first hero role, so to speak. I have never seen any of the characters [I played so far] as heroes; that's not how they served the stories. But Khaali Peeli is an entertaining Bollywood movie, so the rhythm of my character is inspired by the Hindi film [protagonist]," he observes.

Hushed whispers suggest that producer Ali Abbas Zafar is seeking a digital premiere of the movie, which also features Ananya Panday. However, Khatter says he belongs to the old school of thought and romanticises the experience of going to the cinema. "As an actor, the screen size shouldn't matter. But as an audience, watching a film in a cinema changes the experience. Films made for big screens are shot in a certain way, and every aspect of the film is built taking into account that it will finally be experienced in a large dark auditorium. I hope Khaali Peeli has a theatrical release because we always imagined it as a [big-screen] outing."

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