When I went on the Saaho set, I thought I was in a Christopher Nolan film: Neil Nitin Mukesh

Actor-producer Neil Nitin Mukesh spoke to Firstpost about his action-thriller Saaho, his home production Bypass Road and the remake of Tamil film Kaththi. Tell us about your journey with Saaho. So I did film Kaththi (2014) with Vijay sir, right after Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, and it was a mega-blockbuster. So ever since then, I’ve been getting a lot of offers from the south industry and they welcomed me with warmth. I met Sujeeth at one of the award functions, and he showed interest in working with me. A couple of months later he called me up and asked if he could fly down to Mumbai and narrate something to me. So, he came along with producer Pramod, they met me, we sat in the apartment and he narrated Saaho to me, which instantly got my attention. I was extremely excited because, firstly the vision was very clear; they knew exactly the kind of mammoth scale of action-thriller they wanted to make. Baahubali 1 hadn’t released as yet and the team was putting things together at that point. I think it will be the biggest action thriller  from India. [caption id=“attachment_7112191” align=“alignnone” width=“1005”]  Neil Nitin Mukesh in Saaho.[/caption] What can you tell us about your character? I like the mystery to be maintained because my character has many layers to him and he’s is very unpredictable. I treat every film of mine as my debut film. Many feel that the action scenes of a film are shown in the trailer just to attract the audience. What’s your take on this? Whatever action you have seen in the trailer, is just a dot of what the scale of the action of Saaho is. I haven’t seen such a big action film coming out from India as of now. So that itself is a huge achievement. And I will not be modest about the fact that I’m very lucky to be a part of such a big action film. When I went on the set, I thought I’m on a Christopher Nolan set. We were shooting in Abu Dhabi and they created the entire city out there. Sabu Cyril sir (production designer) has pushed the envelope. How has your experience been working in the South film industry? I think it’s a brilliant industry where work ethics are very strong, their actors are consolidated superstars, and they deliver mega-hits. Their fan base is humongous; the love for cinema is impeccable. Their discipline is very strong. Their knowledge of technicalities is par excellence. They study cinema, and I’ve also seen that they will try very hard to execute a certain shot if it demands a certain execution. In one of my scenes in Saaho, they created a rig just to create magic on screen; they haven’t compromised on it, whereas anyone else would have done it to control the budget. What’s your take on diminishing boundaries between Bollywood and south cinema with Akshay Kumar doing 2.0, Suniel Shetty doing Pehlwaan, Jackie Shroff and others doing regional films? I feel that as an actor creativity shouldn’t have boundaries. Language should not be a barrier. Since you mentioned Kaththi, it’s being remade by Jagan Shakti (Mission Mangal director) with Akshay Kumar, have they approached you to reprise your role? Not really, but I have approached Jagan for the role, as I love that role, and I hope they consider me. But with Akshay sir coming on board it’s going to be a fab film. I wish the entire team great luck.