Bollywood is known for its love stories. But we have also had a lot of films based on love between friends, right from Sholay to Dil Chahta Hai to 3 Idiots. In 2013, a film on the same relation arrived in the form of Abhishek Kapoor’s Kai Po Che. Apart from being successful, it also managed to stand apart from other mainstream films on friendship purely because of its rooted storyline and much more realistic approach.
10 Years of Kai Po Che EXCLUSIVE: Amrita Puri gets nostalgic recalling the Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao, Amit Sadh starrer
Based on author Chetan Bhagat’s book ‘The 3 Mistakes Of My Life’, Kai Po Che saw Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh play three friends growing up in Ahmedabad during the early 2000s and their coming of age through some serious events that took place back then. Amrita Puri led the female cast of the film as she played Sushant’s sister and Rajkummar’s love interest.
As Kai Po Che completes 10 years today, the actress looked back at the making of the film in an exclusive chat with Bollywood Hungama. Amrita said that she is proud to be a part of a film that is iconic, still talked about and loved.
The actress was relatively new 10 years ago. Her casting happened unplanned as she met Abhishek Kapoor at a party and got talking. “He asked ‘What do you do?’ He didn’t know that I am an actor. Then I told him that I am an actor. So, he thought of me for the role of Vidya Bhatt and asked me to audition,” she said. She auditioned with Mukesh Chhabra and a month or two later she was told that she has bagged the role.
Although Kai Po Che has quite a few dramatic twists, it stayed away from melodrama. This was also seen in the subtle performances of the cast. Amrita told us that they achieved this through workshops with Mukesh Chhabra. “We did character development and script reading with Gattu (Kapoor) and the rest of the cast,” she said. “He said that he wanted my character to be cute and sweet but at the same time flirtatious. He said those scenes need to be like kachcha kairi (raw mango). All this really helps you get into your character.”
One of the biggest challenges for Amrita was her diction since her character was from Ahmedabad. “I had to work a lot on my diction with a diction coach because I am from Bombay; I am urban and so is my accent. There was some Gujarati (in the dialogues). The pol in Ahmedabad is very old school. It should look like I am from there,” she said. The other challenge was the scorching heat of the summer. In fact, she revealed that Sushant once got a heat stroke and later on, almost everyone faced issues related to the heat.
As Amrita played Rajkummar’s love interest, the two had to shoot together on quite a few occasions. “At that time, he (Rajkummar) wasn’t a known name as he was relatively new,” she said. “He was very honest, sincere and hardworking. But he also wants his co-star to shine as an actor. We would work on the scene and dialogues.”
She also had a good time shooting with Sushant and Amit. “All of us were quite new back then and very excited. When you are new, you are also naïve and fresh and there is that idealism as well; you haven’t seen the world yet. We got along very well. Each of us wanted to prove ourselves,” she said.
Kai Po Che was the Bollywood debut for Sushant Singh Rajput. But he was already popular because of his hit TV show Pavitra Rishta. Apart from playing Amrita’s brother on screen, SSR also played his scooty coach off screen.
“I didn’t know how to ride a scooty; I still don’t know much,” said Amrita. “But I had to ride it because girls in Gujarat and Ahmedabad do that. So, Sushant became my scooty coach. We used to ride around Aaram Nagar (in Mumbai). Everyone used to recognize him and run after the scooty. At times, I couldn’t ride properly as they used to surround us to see him. So, we had a lot of fun memories like that.”
Looking back at Kai Po Che after a decade Amrita feels emotional. “It’s very nostalgic,” she said. “At that time, we didn’t even know that it will be such a big hit. You don’t realize when you are shooting and that that time won’t come back. Now Sushant is no more, so it’s very sentimental and nostalgic. I always get emotional when I am talking about it. When I think of Kai Po Che, I feel a lot of love for everybody who was involved. All the actors and crew. It was like a family unit.”
Talking about her forthcoming projects, Amrita will be seen in the web film Neeyat. Produced by Abundantia Entertainment, it also stars Vidya Balan, Ram Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami, among others.
More Pages: Kai Po Che! Box Office Collection , Kai Po Che! Movie Review
BOLLYWOOD NEWS – LIVE UPDATES
Catch us for latest Bollywood News, New Bollywood Movies update, Box office collection, New Movies Release , Bollywood News Hindi, Entertainment News, Bollywood Live News Today & Upcoming Movies 2023 and stay updated with latest hindi movies only on Bollywood Hungama.
