EXCLUSIVE | Director Anand Tiwari on Triptii Dimri: 'She was there in Animal but in Bad Newz, she's going to...'

‘It’s a case of heteropaternal superfecundation,’ says a doctor in the trailer of Vicky Kaushal, Triptii Dimri, Ammy Virk’s comedy. What is it? Two different eggs have been fertilised in the same cycle, so both Vicky and Ammy are fathers of Triptii’s child. Just like the 2019 comedy Good Newwz, which was about sperm exchange, this one that falls in the same vein, seems to be an entertainer.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, director Anand Tiwari speaks about the change of the title from _Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam_ , Vicky Kaushal’s versatility, Triptii Dimri’s new-found popularity, and how the film offers a deep dive into nostalgia.

Edited excerpts from the interview

How did the title become Bad Newz?

This film has always been a sister cousin in that sense of Good Newwz. It is dealing with a complicated pregnancy scenario. So we were throwing darts and never really christened Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam. We kind of did on a trade thing, but that was always like a work in progress title. We were always searching for what would be the title for this film and we knew, when we have our release plans, when we really need to worry about it.

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So this great mind called Karan Johar said this film has more chaos than Good Newwz which was dealing with IVF and things that we experience around us. Bad Newz is getting into a very unique phenomenon that we don’t generally experience around us called Heteropaternal superfecundation. It was organically the right thing to do.

How does that song from Duplicate fit into the scheme of things, the madness and the chaos?

I have been a fan of two-hero films and comedies from my childhood. I have grown up to Deewana Mastana and Dostana. I’ve grown up on Do Aur Do Paanch. So those films that we grew up to have always been, a great inspiration for me in that storytelling that I want to do in the commercial Hindi space. This is one of my favourite songs. It so happened that at some stage, we were talking about a Dharma song. It’s from Duplicate. And Karan, in fact, was, very involved in shooting this song. And let him talk about this trivia of the original song. And the dum patchik dum, we were chatting about of how energetic it is.

And how it suddenly lends itself to the tonality of a film. And we decided to use it to really set the tone of the baap of all wars that we really wanted to bring between Ammy and Vicky with Triptii in the middle. There is a certain amount of lightness to it, and it just married itself quite organically to the film.

The trailer has received unanimously positive response. So what discussions went behind cutting and editing the promo?

Honestly speaking, you want to give the audiences the kind of tone the film will be. And we are very happy and satisfied that we’ve been able to promise the right tone for the film. If the audience hadn’t responded to the trailer, we would have been a little nervous because the film is exactly the tone that the trailer is. It is that madness. It has meta jokes. It has loads of meta jokes. It is an ode to Bollywood. And today, when Amrit and I are sitting in Dharma, where Dharma has been so kind to us to make us their co-producers when we started opening this film up, we wanted to give, not just Dharma, but the entire film industry that we grew up watching a great amount of hat tips and odes to. So the film is littered with that.

Vicky does a Sam Manekshaw, but he also does a Dunki. He does a Manmarziyaan, but he also does a Raazi. What do you have to say about him as an actor?

I think there are very few actors who can actually mould themselves like Vicky does. He’s, of course, a very kind-hearted human being. He’s a very genuine human being. He’s a a guy fully rooted in his reality, and he’s a guy who’s very relatable enough now. But beyond that, he’s really a great actor. He really has a great hold on his craft. And that for me as a friend, as a filmmaker, has been such a pleasure to see over the years. When I saw him in Masaan as an audience, when I directed him in Love Per Square Foot, and now when I see him, from behind the lens in Bad NewZ, and when I edit his work, I I am just admiring his growth.

And I know he’s going to this is just the beginning of Vicky Kaushal the star. I think, we are going to see him shine even brighter.

And talking about Triptii, she has resurrected to a whole new level after the success of Animal, but she also has Laila Majnu, Bulbbul, Qala. What can we expect from her character and her performance in this film?

I think people will be very pleasantly surprised and because in a commercial film, how much will a female part really have when you have two heroes is a perception, but, they’ll be pleasantly surprised when they see the film. She’s a very, very strong actor as we’ve seen in the films you named. Especially Bulbbul. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. And we’ve seen her hold her own in a film which was so huge as Animal. This film belongs to her. This film belongs to Vicky, and this film belongs to Ammy and to all the actors, and they have held and championed the the roles so well, and hence, they will play off with each other’s role.

Triptii is again a long race. She’s going to go very far in this work, in this industry. She has just started, I think. And, this is her second theatrical film after Laila Majnu, which came a while ago. She’s also very excited to test, the waters of commercial success, hopefully. Of course, Animal was there, but this film, she’s there through and through, and it will be very, very exciting to see how people receive her, in all the various emotions that she’s showing in the film, whether it is comedy, whether it is drama, I am very confident about the girl.

The final scene of the trailer, the banter between Vicky and Ammy is actually reminding me of, the banter that happens between Govinda and Anil Kapoor in Deewana Mastana. They’re actually throwing references of their own films. It’s kind of a nostalgic and meta.

It’s a full homage to David Dhawan. It’s a full head cap. It’s a bow down to David Dhawan. Not just that moment, there are other head tips to David sir. There are hat tips to Karan Johar, to Aditya Chopra. There are actors that have been given hatches to. There are popular characters and people that you know who have given who have been given hatches to. I have taken popular reality as I know it, as I enjoy it, and I’ve put it in the film. But really, credit to Tarun Dudeja, credit to, Ishita to open that out in scripting, because a director is only as good as the script is, only as good as the actors are, only as good as the crew is that is making making the film. So I’m I’m happy that I I’m I was I was cushioned with the team that I was able to, get together, that the producers were able to give me.