EXCLUSIVE | JioCinema's 'PILL' director Rajkumar Gupta on Riteish Deshmukh: 'Always admired his work, he's not just a star but...'

Rajkumar Gupta’s PILL now streaming on JioCinema, introduces you to Prakash Chauhan, played by Riteish Deshmukh, who digs through the deep-set rot in the Indian pharmaceutical world. The series showcases the process through which a pill reaches an individual, through diverse characters – from powerful pharma industrialists, corrupt doctors, to medical representatives, compromised drug regulators, politicians, journalists, and whistleblowers.

Through the course of the show, tension unfolds as Prakash faces-off the manipulative CEO of Pharma company, portrayed by Pavan Malhotra and takes on an honest fight to find out the truth behind the powerful nexus that puts profits before patients. In this compelling clash of good vs. evil, Prakash’s quest to truth raises hope for the common man to be more aware and vigilant in a world where everyone is at the mercy of medicines and vaccines.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost , the filmmaker spoke about the response the show has received so far, working with Deshmukh, and casting him again in Raid 2.

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Edited excerpts from the interview

How did you come up with the idea of the whole show?

People are liking the show, and, the reviews have also been positive. The feedback has been positive. So it’s good. A subject we thought we should explore has connected with the audience and with normal people at large. Me and my, producer Ronnie Screwvala, we were discussing making things together since we have made films before.

So that’s how the idea of Pill came about. We consume so many Pills in our daily lives, and that’s what made us thinking, you know, and that’s how the idea of the show came about. If a company is making a fake counterfeit or substandard drug, how it can have an impact, which can pose a significant threat to public health. That’s what the idea was, and that’s how that was a take-off point. And that’s where we started developing the story in and around that thought. And that’s when the research started, and that’s when the writing started.

What made you zero down Riteish Deshmukh as the central character of the show?

I think I have admired his work for a long time. We have seen him doing in such fabulous roles, be it a comedy or in films which where he has played negative shades or in his Marathi films where he had played a very different character. So he’s someone whom I had always his work, I had always enjoyed. And I used to watch it, and I used to think that such a fabulous actor. Not only a star, but actor also.

So I felt that when this came about, I thought it would be great to collaborate on this. And once the script was ready, I approached him. And luckily, he also felt the same about it, he also emotionally connected with the subject and also felt the same that we had thought. And that’s when we decided to collaborate on this together. So, like, like, were you happy after, like, you know, whatever the out outcome was of the series? This is my first experience as a series creator or director, for that matter. But when you make a film or make a series, you come in from a point of view and coming from something that you feel will connect to people, in some way or the other.

And, when it really, really started getting appreciated, you realize whatever you had set out to do, at least people have recognized that.

How much more did you get to know about the pharma industry while working on the series? 

There is lot of research that has gone into making this series from the writing point of view. We have read a lot, and we have gone through the research material. And you come across things, you read things, that kind of makes you think. When you write anything and you want to delve into it, there’s a lot of research goes into any subject that you are, you are writing about. And similarly, this also went into research went into this.

And, of course, there are a lot of discoveries. There are a lot of things that we came to know. There are a lot of things that we that we know were right. There are a lot of things that we know were wrong. So that the that process itself, had lot of its, discoveries as well as as eye opening incident.

You have RAID 2 coming up where Riteish is the antagonist. How did the idea strike you, like, making him a negative character?

I think he’s such a fabulous actor. I think he can transform himself into various characters. That’s how it started.

And what can we expect, from the face-off between Ajay Devgn and Riteish Deshmukh in the sequel?

I think let’s wait. This is about Pill. We will discuss in detail about the character, about the conflict, about the face off when we come closer to the promotion of the film.