Abhishek Bachchan was very brattish in the beginning, says Anurag Kashyap: ‘He’d make fun of everything’

Anurag Kashyap shared his experience of working with actor Abhishek Bachchan in a new interview. The filmmaker said that Abhishek ‘was very brattish’ during his initial years in the film industry. He also recalled shooting for the television show Yudh with Amitabh Bachchan, and asking the veteran actor to tone down his performance. Anurag added that Amitabh ‘takes criticism well’. Also read: Anurag Kashyap reveals Shah Rukh Khan advised him to ‘not be on Twitter’

Anurag Kashyap has worked with Abhishek as a dialogue writer in Yuva (2004), and a director in Manmarziyaan (2018). Anurag said that the actor did not ‘take things seriously’ during the first time they worked. However, the Abhishek that he worked with in Manmarziyaan was ‘entirely different’. While Mani Ratnam’s Yuva featured Ajay Devgn, Vivek Oberoi, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor and Esha Deol alongside Abhishek, Manmarziyaan saw Abhishek with Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal.

“We (Abhishek and Anurag) worked together on Yuva. I wrote the dialogues for that film. My brother was also an AD on it, and we worked quite a bit with Abhishek on the dubbing of that film as well… He’s a very hard-working person. He’s cultured, loves food. But he was very brattish in the beginning. He’d make fun of everything, not take things seriously. But people grow, and he grew. That Abhishek and the Abhishek I worked with on Manmarziyaan are two entirely different people,” Anurag Kashyap said in Hindi in an interview to The Lallantop.

Further speaking about Amitabh, Anurag shared the actor’s reaction to being asked to tone down the Amitabh Bachchan-ness of his performance in Yudh. “He takes criticism well. I noticed that he was delivering a typical Amitabh Bachchan-style performance, and I wanted something more real, and this is what I told him,” Anurag said in the same interview.

Anurag was the creative director on Yudh. It also featured actors Sarika, Zakir Hussain, Mona Wasu, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Kay Kay Menon. Yudh premiered on Sony Entertainment Television in 2014.

Anurag’s latest film Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat was released on February 3. The musical romantic drama, written and directed by Anurag, features Alaya F alongside debutant Karan Mehta. An excerpt of Hindustan Times’ Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat review read, “If you are bored of watching brainless films that just look good on screen but don’t require you to look for logic, then Anurag Kashyap’s Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat might seem a bit different. Not because it has any extraordinary art in there, but for the sheer complexity that Kashyap infuses in his story that requires you to concentrate on the screen a bit harder to understand what is even happening…”