Be Happy director Remo D'Souza: ‘Dance is integral to this film, but is not its crux’

Remo D’souza’s journey as a choreographer influenced his past dance-based films, but the director says Be Happy starring Abhishek Bachchan shows him in a new light

Considering that both Abhishek Bachchan and child actor Inayat Verma were part of the 2020 film Ludo, it’s perhaps a safe bet to suggest that the film inspired Remo D’souza to cast them together again in Be Happy. However, when we ask the director of the film that released on Friday if this were indeed true, pat comes his reply. “No. I had thought of them before Ludo was released. I saw her in an ad and that stayed with me.

Remo D’souza

Since they have already done a film, they have chemistry. That made my work simpler, because a director spends a lot of time whipping up chemistry between two actors. I recall, if I’d say, good, after a shot involving both of them was completed, they’d begin to fight [playfully], and ask me, ‘Who did you say that to?’” recalls the director-choreographer who has previously helmed dance-based films like ABCD (2013) and Street Dancer (2020).

D’souza has, on more occasions than one, established his interest in creating cinema that may not be restricted to the themes of music and dance alone. This addition to his repertoire then is only fitting. Asserting that he needed to “break the mould” in an industry that’s too quick to bracket individuals, he says, “Dance is integral in this film too, but it is not the [crux of the] story. I had that zidd to tell this story. It is a tender, father-daughter tale; an emotional journey of a father. I knew this was a side to me that people had not seen.”

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