Past the seventh anniversary of Gunday, actor Arjun Kapoor shares his love for the role and how his on-screen bromance with Ranveer Singh instantly became a hit
Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh’s on-screen bromance in the film Gunday was a hit as audiences really loved their camaraderie. Past the seventh anniversary of the film’s release, Arjun shares why Gunday is and will always be one of his favourite films.
What did you love about the film that made you sign it instantly?
At the time I was starting my career, I was hardly six months old in the business and Adi sir (Aditya Chopra) offered me a film which was a two-hero ensemble, big commercial set-up. When I met Ali (Abbas Zafar), I loved his energy and excitement towards treating it like a larger than life adventure. It was like a throwback and a tribute to the 70’s & 80’s cinema that I grew up watching. The ‘Mukul Anand, Subhash Ghai space of cinema’ and at the same time a film about brotherhood and gangsters. When you are a young actor starting out, these are all trappings that you love exploring and doing in mainstream cinema. You want to establish yourself at the beginning. You want to do mainstream stuff with a sense of heightened reality and that’s what Gunday was all about. I got really excited about doing something so front footed and mainstream.
Your bromance with Ranveer in the film was an instant hit. Tell us what made the bonhomie so special.
I think it was the off-camera love and respect we had for each other because we realised we have too much in common. In fact we are born just ten days apart from each other. It was much simpler for us to bond than we realised. And when you are starting out, you are not thinking about your career and rivalry. You are just trying to make the best film possible and have the most fun. Ranveer and I also knew each other before the film so it made it a little simpler to break the ice onset. Credit to Ali for writing a film that allowed us to be best friends. He was a big factor for bringing me and Ranveer closer. It just happened, it was just the flow. It’s like chalk and cheese where even though we are poles apart, we still manage to fit together. It’s like sugar and spice, they are opposites but both sound good together. We were two people who were completely different but ended up getting along and working well together. People realised this when they saw the trailer where both of us looked good together.
The film presented you in an all new avatar. What did you love the most about your character?
Costumes. To play a character in the 70’s, a gangster, it’s always exciting to go into. It was my first-period film at that time. The way I was styled, presented, the low angle trolleys and just being treated larger than life, running in slow motion, that introduction coming out of the train, landing on a coal train and much more. I think the presentation was way bigger than any third film could have gotten me and it was cool, unique and exciting. You usually feel that you need to work a lot, before you get that kind of scale but here I was immediately, in the third film, within the first six/eight months of my career.
What do you think was the film’s USP?
I think the camaraderie between Ranveer and me and the big star cast coming together, was special. After a long time, there was a two-hero film and the youth loved the music. I know for a fact that the music and trailer made all the difference.