Director Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D starring Abhay Deol, Kalki Koechlin and Mahie Gill was critically acclaimed. The director, however, recently disclosed that a number of actresses declined to audition for the movie. He claimed that after reading the script, the boyfriend of one of the actresses even went so far as to slap Anurag due to the strong rejections.
During a conversation at the Marrakech International Film Festival, Anurag talked candidly about the film’s production.As reported by The Indian Express, Anurag stated, “I made the two women the protagonists of the film, and I didn’t hold back on the language or anything. Girls refused to audition for the film when they read the script. I got slapped by one actress’ boyfriend, who said, ‘How dare you send the script to my girlfriend?’. I was like, ‘Okay, sorry’. My producer threw the script down and called it vulgar. It actually got made because of my producer’s wife, who loved it.” It appears that the filmmaker was making reference to Ronnie Screwvala’s wife.
He also said he wanted to approach ‘Devdas’ in a different way than the way it was done in the novel. Anurag said that he took the three characters from ‘Devdas’ and subverted every expectation that the audience might have had. What truly shocked viewers was that the two female characters in a narrative often regarded as misogynistic possessed agency. In fact, they exhibited more agency than the male character, who appeared devoid of it. He had women advocating for the film and supporting their vision; however, some men argued that this approach was spoiling the culture of the country.
He concluded by saying, “There was a two-way fight… I changed the famous ending of Devdas, because the book thrives on creating empathy for this despicable character, who dies, so you’re supposed to feel sad. I said, ‘I’m not going to kill him.”
To his own surprise, ‘Dev D’ went on to become an enormous hit. People adored the songs as well as his unique interpretation of the ‘Devdas’ characters.
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