At the launch of the song Pashmina, the actors of Fitoor spoke about how they trained hard to pull off their complicated characters. Director Abhishek Kapoor explained that the red hair of the leading lady is a metaphor for the red of the chinar trees which grow only in Kashmir. Shrabasti Mallik reports
The serene beauty of Kashmir is the backdrop of the much awaited movie, Fitoor starring Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapoor. And, Delhi ki sardi in January seemed more than just perfect to release the sensuous song, Pashmina. Although the video was out a day before but the team — the lead actors and director Abhishek Kapoor — made it official.
While Aditya managed to hide his smouldering looks behind a grey full sleeve t-shirt, Kaif looked quite elegant in a purple, off shoulder, corset gown. In case you are wondering, no, she did not feel cold.
The choreography of the song is quite sensuous and the actress has pulled off some beautiful ballet steps. Choreographer Bosco Ceaser made sure that both the actors got everything right. Aditya mentioned how he had never really thought about how difficult it would be until Kaif made him see it. “Forget dancing. I never even planned to become an actor. So when Bosco said they we had three days to shoot the song, I was like ‘ok let’s do this.’ And Katrina said that we would need at least 10 days to pull that choreography off,” he said.
Kaif said that she owed her dancing capabilities to Ceaser. She told us that it was he who had helped her find her passion in dance. “It was during my early days when he was choreographing a dance for me and he was making it hard. He even yelled at me once because I could not get it right. I asked him later why he did so and he said that he saw something in me and that I did not know how to connect with it. So he helped me realise it and find my passion for dance. I am grateful to him,” she elaborated.
Aditya, too, did his share of hard work. He did not hesitate to share how he trained in the basics of painting and welding to get into his character of Noor. “I took some lessons in painting and drawing — some basic stuff. As an actor you have to come across as convincing and that’s your job. You are not trying to become perfect at it. My character also had to work with different materials like metal and wood. There was also welding and melting of metal involved. And truthfully, it was quite therapeutic — to be melting metals — because you do not get to do that on a daily basis. To familiarise myself with the equipments was one side of it — the skill angle of it. The other was the fact that I wanted to understand how creative people work because they have a way of processing things in a different way. So I needed to kind of wrap my head around that thought process and the inspiration, in order to get close to the skin of the character,” he pointed out.
Fitoor is an adaptation of one of Charles Dickens’ most loved work Great Expectations. From the looks of the trailer, the movie seems to have been heavily inspired from the 1998 film, of the novel, by Alfonso Cuarón starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. When we asked about it, Abhishek denied it saying, “No. I think that is a similarity. Fitoor is very different from that. Through this movie we are re-looking at the novel. It is about getting deeper into the minds of the characters and why they are the way they are. So it is more about that than just this facet of it.”
Not many would know that Fitoor was Kaif’s idea and she was the one who approached Abhishek. “I guess I can take credit for just that,” she laughed, finally slipping into a jacket during the media interaction.
The original character of Estella, on which Kaif’s character Firdaus is based, is a complicated one. She does not easily love. It, therefore, took Kaif several sessions with the director to understand how he envisioned her. She said, “Firdaus is complex and hard to understand because that is how she has been brought up. So I had to spent a lot of time with Abhishek trying to understand how he saw her.” To that the director added, “Katrina has been very trusting. Firdaus is delicate and complicated and if not managed well, the character could have gone completely off track. It was a brave move on her part because the real discovery of the character is throughout the movie. It was like signing a cheque and hoping that the guy does not misuse it.”
Ever since the trailers were released, we have wondered why Kaif had coloured her hair red. In fact there are various shades of the colour in almost every scene of the movie, going by the little glimpses from the trailers. The director clarified our doubts with this simple explanation, “The red in Fitoor is like the chinar leaves when they turn red in autumn. They are so enchanting and so fascinating — just like the leading ladies in our film. They also have red hair and they can be very captivating and seductive. It is also a metaphor for the chinar trees which grow only in Kashmir.”
From the discussion we realised that both the lead actors had a lot of fun during the shoot. Kaif appreciated her co star and said, “He has this incredible energy that we all felt. It was always present and I was taken aback and knew that it would be a great journey, from the moment we gave our first shot.”
At the discussion it was mentioned that 11 years ago, when Aditya was a VJ, he had interviewed Kaif for one of his shows. He was asked whether he, at any point, felt apprehensive during the shoot. To which he blushed like a child and said, “Yes, but she has done probably five times more films that I have, and that amount of experience brings about a certain amount of wisdom. There have been plenty of instances during the shoot where she has helped me out and vice-versa.”
The trailers, the songs and the lead pair looks promising. And so does Tabu, in the character of Miss Havisham (from the original). But it is just a matter of a few more weeks (it releases on February 12) to see how true the director and actors have been to Dickens’ narrative and the characters.