Abhishek Bachchan And Shoojit Sircar Talk I Want to Talk in this fascinating Q&A

Abhishek Bachchan – Arjun Dada —- what I think is it’s very important as an actor is to find some sort of an anchor in the story. And that anchor, what I’ve learnt over time, has to be an emotional anchor. It’s like a linchpin. Besides that, the rest of the garnishing and the cosmetics of the screenplay come into it. For me, when you just told me about the motivation of Arjun Da – that was the one hook that really got me.   

                             
Shoojit Sircar – Like, to take it from there, when the first time I heard what Arjun Da has got, which the character you’re playing has, the doctors have given him 100 days to live. I got hooked that somebody got 100 days to live. And what will he do? So that got me, you know, my curiosity too.

Abhishek Bachchan – No, it’s an amazing thought. If you think that a doctor tells you you have 100 days. What does a person think? First, how do you process that information? Once, it’s going to take you a few days to process that. And once it’s processed, what do I do? What does that person think at night when his head is the pillow? I’m sure one of the thoughts must be, ‘Am I going to wake up tomorrow? Is this my last night? How do I want to live my last night? These are my last few days. What do I want to do? What do I not want to do? Is there anything in my life that I need to put closure to?’. There’ll be financial things, there’ll be emotional things, there’ll be personal things. There’s a whole checklist that you start making. And for a person to be going through that was so intriguing to me because it sounds very cool. You have 100 days to live, why are you making a picture on it? But what does a person actually do when you sit down and just give it five minutes and think? It’s an amazing frame of mind to be in. And that coupled with when Raka asked him.

Shoojit Sircar – The first time when I told you that, I was smiling. I was smiling, and you said, ‘What is so humorous about it?’. And I told you, you know, the doctor has given him 100 days. I still find humour there. I mean, people ask me why I find humour in Piku and other things, even in October. I find humor in these real-life moments. And when I started speaking to Arjun Da, you know, my films normally are very inspired from real life. In the beginning, I didn’t tell you that it’s a real-life film. I just told you the story basically, this man is going to, and then I told you that it’s a real-life story. So, you asked me what is humorous about it. What do you think? What do you think you found? 

Abhishek Bachchan – You know, Dada, I think I somewhere got the answer for that almost halfway into the shoot of the film. Till then, I was still approaching it as a very dramatic story, because the inherent beats of the story are very dramatic, very emotional. When you see how Arjun reacts to certain situations, when you read the scene, play it out in your head and then when you shoot it, you start realising that actually, it’s not a unique reaction seeing the lighter side of it. It’s actually the best reaction. The best way to deal with this tragedy is to be able to laugh in the face of it. The best way to resolve any relationship in your life is to be able to see the lightheartedness in it. It’s actually a very mature way of approaching it. 

Shoojit Sircar – Yeah. No, I think it’s more like smiling at your adversities.

Abhishek Bachchan – Because you’re doing two things. You’re softening the blow for yourself because you’re smiling. And two, the adversity is being thrown off its game because, hey, wait, you’re not meant to react like this. This is something else. So, I started realising that halfway through the shoot. And I think I actually clicked into fifth gear, once the acceptance that you have to see the brighter side of life. Because there’s so much darkness around us. And if you start paying attention to the darkness, it’ll swallow you. And if I have 100 days to live, I don’t want to spend those 100 days in self-pity, remorse. No. I want to do it with a smile on my face.  And that made it such an intriguing interpretation of how to deal with something like this. 

Shoojit Sircar – I laughed every day and every scene —- for me, it was because they all came from my discussions with my friend Arjun. So, every day, his nature, the character he is, it’s so inspiring that everything he got, he’s serious. But deep inside, there’s a subtle way of saying that, okay, here I come, here you come. Okay, let’s have a fight. So, he once told me that I am married to cancer. So, I said, what do you mean? He said, I am now married to cancer. So, now we are married. So, now I have to take him with me only. So, the way he was smiling and grinning. And you know, talking to me. 

Abhishek Bachchan – We were in Riverside, where we shot part of the film, on the outskirts of LA. And he said, ‘It’s not a very happy marriage, but it’s a marriage’. I found that such a nice way of just thinking about it, about cancer. He said, it’s a marriage. I said, ‘Why do you say that?’,  he said, ‘Till death do us apart’. You know, you are married till death do us part. That gave me force. There is a lot of wisdom in that. And that’s such a unique way of looking at it; why would you not want to delve deeper into a character like this?

Shoojit Sircar – Somewhere, you know, when we were performing, when we were talking, before we went for a shoot, I found that in you, also, somewhere below the belt. That humour, that satire that is there in every discussion there, which a lot of people don’t know actually. You are, I am not talking about pranks, but I think the kind of wisdom that you have, and you are with a very, you know, straight face that you play on us, on everybody else. There are a lot of things that you are originally saying purely. Do you agree? 

Abhishek Bachchan – Partially. Like I said once in an interview we were doing, I think we are both very facetious. But a lot of the time, somebody who is being facetious is doing so because that’s their defense mechanism. Life is what it is, Dada! You very quickly realise that you don’t really have the ability or the power to change too much of it. You have to learn to just cope with it. There is a famous saying, ‘You can’t run from the wind. You just have to trim your sails and carry on.’ At that point in time, trying to find a light-heartedness in it is something that I have always wanted. I have always used, I think, to maybe just make that tonic a bit sweeter to swallow.

Abhishek Bachchan –  Instead of just saying, this is the end. It will keep motivating you to keep trying. Another thing which I really like with Arjun da was I found that he was never afraid or shy in asking for help. And I find that very courageous. He is not afraid to ask for help. He is not afraid to go into the hospital and say, ‘Okay.’ He has not given up. Somebody who has dealt with the things that he has dealt with. And continuing to deal with it, it is very easy to be fed up. After what, 31 odd years? And say, it is enough. I don’t want to do it anymore. The fact is that he is still at it. He is still trying, too.

Shoojit Sircar – A very important thing that pulled me into making this film – I am a father. Arjun da also is a father. You have a daughter. So, for me to figure out my daughter’s relationship with me before the film, before I mean, I was interacting with my daughters. And after I spoke with him and, I scripted the film. And then there was some course correction that happened with my daughter. Because of the script. Because there are a lot of things in which daughters are much more mature than we think. We think that we know more than our daughter. But daughters are more sensitive in that sense. I thought that relationship is really beautiful in this film. And I kept exploring it. And that’s what this film is all about. Did it affect you?

Abhishek Bachchan –  No. The impression my films have on me, in my personal life, I think happens before I start the film. I don’t really remember the film, any film of mine or a character that I’ve played, influencing my private life. In that sense, once I am in the film. It’s about being as truthful to the character as possible. And executing my director’s vision. Doing the kind of films that I choose to do is reflective of a state of mind that I am in at that point of time.

With what Raka told him, that he will dance at her wedding. For any father, giving your daughter away is one of the high points of your life. It’s something that you look forward to. You plan for it. His motivation to be there. For his kid, he is willing to go through whatever it takes. Because of a promise he made is something that resonated with me. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I chose it. My daughter is still young. 

Shoojit Sircar – For a father, to feel that emotion of ‘I need to do whatever it takes to be available to my daughter.’

Shoojit Sircar – This film is all about communication. For me, also the fact that we sometimes, as an individual, we sometimes presume that we know a lot of things. Suppose, I presume that I know a lot of things about you, but they are deep inside. There are many things which I may not have tapped at all. It’s only suddenly someday you come up. 

So that was another thing that I wanted to explore in this film. The next thing I wanted to explore was that I took every film as a reflection of myself somewhere. For me, I only do films if it’s somewhere that touches me, like in a film just like this one. This touched me in a sense that when I see my problems, whether it’s an emotional problem or health problem, now I straight away start comparing with your characters, or Junda’s problem, I laugh at it. I mean, my problem is no problem at all. I am living. Eating. Watching films. Going Around. I mean. Doing so many things. 

Abhishek Bachchan –  It makes you realise how grateful you need to be for what you have. 

Shoojit Sircar – Of course, I mean. That’s why I made this film. It’s all about how grateful I am about everything. And that drove me to purely make this film and take it to where it is. At the end, if somebody asks you if you get back your life, what will you do? Arjun here, he says ‘I want to talk’. I treated this film as an inspiration for myself.

Abhishek Bachchan –  I think it’s very important. Apart from the usual parameters of what a film should do, it’s not just the commercial aspect of it that’s important. It’s also crucial to be able to relate to it. What you said is very important, and it’s such a nice thing to hear that we’re still thinking like that.

When I see this film, I see this character, I see his arc, I see his journey, and it’s unbelievably inspiring because it makes me realise that what I am worried about, why I am lamenting my life, look at what other people are dealing with. I am actually very lucky. It kind of shows you the mirror, which I think is such an important part of the job of creative people —to show a mirror to society.

We don’t want to preach; we’re not here to share our personal opinions. But something like this, where a person who has gone through so much can still have a smile on their face, makes you think, ‘What’s your excuse?’

Shoojit Sircar – I told you this film is all about an unstoppable journey of a man not giving up. Not giving up In any situation 

Shoojit Sircar – I Want to Talk is a kind of film for me that you know that communication is very important. A lot of my friends told me, you know, I could not talk to my father, I could not talk to my mother. I wish I’d spoken everything that is there in my heart. So all this impacted me, and I made this film.
I really want the audience to watch this film. 

Abhishek Bachchan – Well, I think, as we discussed earlier, it’s a very inspirational film. What I liked about your approach is that it’s a change of flavour and I say that because currently the environment we’re in, everything is larger than life, everything is on steroids, everything is loud. I love that high-octane melodrama. I think it’s so important that in the middle of this is to have a punctuation mark.  And the punctuation mark is to sit down, take a deep breath, and settle into a nice slice-of-life film that might not make you think. To be able to pull that off successfully is an amazing feat. You judge it, and you feel the way you want to feel. It’s a very personal experience.

I expect a varied spectrum of reactions to this film because this film is not telling you what to think. 

It’s just telling you to feel and you will feel when you see the film. Like I said, looking into the mirror what you see is going to be different for everybody else and I think It’s so important to make movies like that as well.