New Delhi: The director of BellBottom, Ranjit Tewari, said that he opened a champagne bottle the day actor Akshay Kumar agreed to do the film. This is his second directorial after Lucknow Central, 2017, where he had Farhan Akhtar playing the lead. “Coming from Kolkata and making a film in Bombay with Farhan was already a dream come true. Then Akshay sir doing your second film, you can’t express that joy in words. God has been kind to me. I couldn’t contain my happiness, I opened a champagne bottle at home,” Tewari told the media.
BellBottom was released in theatres, this week, also just after the opening of the cinema halls after the second lockdown due to the pandemic ended. The film, also starred Lara Dutta, Vaani Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Adil Hussain, and others, opened to mostly positive reviews.
“The screens have come back to action. People are vaccinated now, so the situation is brighter. So they can go out and have family time,” Tewari added, stating how proud he was to pull off the shooting of the film that became the first to go on floors when things eased out last year. “When we could shoot in the pandemic, taking the risk of traveling 200 people to a different country, what can be riskier than that? So you have to go and release it in the best possible scenario. You can’t hold onto a film for a year,” he said.
BellBottom is a period drama set in the 80s that aimed to narrate India’s first covert operation that took place in 1984 after an airplane hijack. It has actor, Akshay Kumar playing a RAW agent who spearheads the task with the code name ‘BellBottom’.
Talking about directing a superstar like Akshay Kumar, and whether there’s pressure involved when the actor is probably bigger a name than the project, Tewari said, “It’s challenging, but the challenge is created by yourself. Akshay sir is not putting any pressure. He’s actually easing it out. But because he’s such an enormous star, it takes a while to realize that, but once you do, you start functioning as it is supposed to be. Then he also gives you that comfort, discussion, and respect. That helps you in the journey to just focus. Our job is to entertain people so being judged is a natural thing. You got to accept it. Then things become easy.”
