Abhishek Bachchan On Being Busier Than Ever

“Every actor has  gone through the situation of his work drying up. I am no exception.” Abhishek Bachchan is  very  proud of  his  next  film Ludo, and rightly so. It is fun, fearless and  fabulously  entertaining.

“I’d say, it is what we  need right now. God knows, all of us are going through  the worst crisis civilization has faced.  I survived the  Covid. So  did my family. There  are many who arent’t that fortunate. We  all need a reason to smile. I think Ludo will put that smile on  everyone’s face,” says Abhishek.

He had  great fun shooting it. “There were many moments when I  was just  laughing away saying the dialogues  and the script sparkles with  humour and warmth. I  had so much fun shooting this.And Dada(director Anurag Basu) gives his  actors so  much room to improvise. There are no hard-and-fast rules on the sets.All of us did what we wanted. Dada just let us be. In that sense he’s a lot like Hrishikesh Mukhrejee , one of my parents’ favourite directors.”

Anurag Basu is also  a favourite of  Abhishek’s. “I’ve been a fan of his work for  a long time. There’s a childlike innocence and  quirkiness in his cinema  and these are  also traits  in his personality. Dada is like  a grownup child. Ludo was  like going to a party. I remember he had directed Life In  The Metro,  another segmented  film like Ludo. It is one of my favourite  films.We both wanted  to work  with  one another. But somehow things didn’t work out on  other occasions. Finally we did come together.”

Abhishek  gives a  lot of  the credit for his performance in Ludo to his little co-star Inaayat Verma who is  all  of  6.

Exults  Abhishek, “She’s  the  most spontaneous  co-star I’ve ever worked with. We were all apprehensive about her  comfort-level, being so young and all. But she came  on  the  sets like  a professional. She would tell Dada  about the  eight ways she could do a scene and then do it in the ninth way  in  the final take. She  lit up the set  with her presence.”

Today Abhishek finds himself busier then ever before. “I’ve  four projects  ahead and I  will be shooting all through 2021. I guess  I’m fortunate. Every actor has  gone through the situation of his work drying up. I am no exception. That I’ve so much work on hand  right now and that too work which excites me is just so  providential.I’m thankful for  this phase  in my career. I’m enjoying it thoroughly.”

As  for Ludo  releasing in the  digital platform Abhishek assumes  a philosophical  attitude. “It is  the need of the hour. So why not accept it? I am the biggest fan of  movie-viewing in a theatre. The darkness,the popcorn, the big screen  …nothing can  replace that experience.It will come back soon. Until it does I  am just happy that Ludo will get  many million viewers across  the  world.”