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| MS Dhoni |
Arun Pandey, who has been long-time friend and business
partner for MS Dhoni, is entreprising. You can here it in his voice, how
dedicated he is to his passion project releasing on September 30. The project
is none other than a Bollywood film based on the life of Dhoni, India's most
successful captain. He emphasises more than a few times that the film was made
purely to motivate youngsters in India and around the world.
He repeats it so many times, that it actually becomes
irksome. Dhoni is a very marketable commodity. And it's hard not to see the
financial prospects in telling the life story of a man like him. He is a World
Cup winning captain, has pan-India appeal and it only makes sense that his
underdog story be sold to the highest bidder. However, the trailers suggest
they have tried to capture the essence of the cricketer's life. Both Neeraj
Pandey (director) and Sushant Singh Rajput (playing Dhoni himself) look
sincere. Will MS Dhoni: The Untold Story break the jinx with Bollywood and
biopics, we'll have to wait and watch.
1. What was that one element in Dhoni's life
story that separates him from the rest of the underdog stories in the world?
Why does the world need to hear Dhoni's story?
A majority of the population is the youth,
out of which a big number come from the small towns. And how many stories like
Dhoni do you have that can motivate you to this extent? The ascent from where
he started to what he has achieved, it is so massive, how do you not get
inspired by a story like that? But it's not even about his victories and the
success and the money that he has made. It is how he has conducted himself
through those phases of life. You hear him in interviews, and he's always
talking about a process. What is a process? The effort we put in today. A lot
of people dream like Dhoni did, but did they put in the effort that Dhoni did?
Dhoni himself never dreamt that he would play for the country, let alone lead
it. What purpose the story will serve is to tell the youth, if you have dreams
big or small, if you put in the effort today, you will be closer to achieving
it than you were yesterday.
You watch Lincoln, Wolf of Wall Street and even A Beautiful
Mind, from the last 15 year's Oscar-winners you'll find at least 10-12 of the
films were based on real life stories. That's why we thought the story needs to
be told. 2. Neeraj Pandey's earlier films have a completely different
flavour compared to what this biopic would need. How did he come on board?
When we first thought of making the movie, we had a few
names about who could be candidates for the director's job. As soon as I heard,
that Neeraj was the man behind A Wednesday, I jumped and was convinced he was
the man who would make it. I'm a great fan of A Wednesday, how he's made this
whole movie around one incident and how in middle of it is the story of a
common man. So I asked my people, and they set up a meeting. And after that one
meeting, Neeraj was on board to direct.
3. Was Sushant the
first choice to play Dhoni? What convinced you he could pull it off?
I was coming back on a plane when I saw Kai Po Che. And I
saw Sushant, the way he batted, bowled and how he talked about the sport. We
thought he would be a good boy to work with. We wanted someone raw, hardworking
and we got both those things from Sushant who really worked hard to get Dhoni's
physique.
4. When did Fox Star
come into the picture?
So there was Dilip (Jha, the writer) who was writing about
the various incidents in Dhoni's life. He used to go everyday, meet him and
hear his stories and wrote that down. After Neeraj came on board, he started
reviewing Dilip's work and he started asking questions and started piecing
together a narrative for the film. After that it took close to 10 months to
find the right studio who will help us tell the story like it should be told.
Vijay Singhji (CEO, Foxstar) was a visionary enough to see the potential in the
story and after that we began shooting.
5. A film like this
can be risky, it requires scale to look convincing, were there dark days when
you thought you couldn't pull this off?
I didn't doubt myself for a single second, since I decided
to start work on making this biopic. The kind of love and affection MS gets
from people all over India, never doubted the project for a single second. And
Fox backed us completely, whatever was the requirement for the movie from my
side, from Neeraj's side was fulfilled without question.
6. There is a
tendency to sugar-coat biopics, has Neeraj Pandey attempted to take on the grey
areas of Dhoni's life?
The definition of grey area tends to differ from person to
person. And as far as clarifications related to conflict of interest has
already been given, it's all there out in the open. There was no glamourisation
of anything, in fact I can tell you positively that 98 percent of the what
happens in the movie, is based on Dhoni's real life. Ask Neeraj, when he came
on board and how difficult he found to find the grey areas in Dhoni's life. He
was surprised that there was hardly any negativity in his life. He was appalled
that he had to work so hard, talk to so many people, and he still couldn't find
any grey areas in MS Dhoni's life.
7. When was the
decision taken about dubbing the movie into Marathi, Tamil and Telugu?
It was always on the cards, even before the trailer was
released. Dhoni has a pan-India appeal and we thought it would be a good idea
to reach out to people in the other regions as well who will be equally eager
to hear Dhoni's story. Even better if it is in their local language.
8. Raj Thackeray's
MNS objected to the Marathi-dubbed version. Are you going to go ahead and
release it in Marathi or is that on hold?
I have to speak to the people at Fox about that, I've not
really been in the loop about that. I'll have to check up on it, it slipped my
mind.
9. How comfortable
was Dhoni opening up on the details of his love-stories? Which are two from the
movie?
Whatever happened in real life, he sat down and spoke to
Neeraj. And that's been included in the movie.
10. Has Dhoni seen
the movie yet? What was his reaction?
Of course, he got emotional. It was a little awkward too for
him, but he hardly ever expresses. He was a little overwhelmed seeing his life
story adapted to the big screen.
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