As Shahid Kapoor is ready to don the ‘Jersey’, we can’t help but cheer!

Sheetal

Shahid Kapoor and Mrunal Thakur, the lead pair of Jersey, which is releasing coming Friday, ended their promotional tour in the City Beautiful, a city they both wanted to visit. For Shahid, who is playing Arjun Talwar, a failed cricketer who decides to return to the field, this film is yet another remake after the huge success of his Kabir Singh.

But the actor says he was in no mood to do a remake right after Kabir Singh. Explains Shahid, “I didn’t want to do a remake again; I was like one is enough. But something changed in me after watching the original Telugu film. I cried a lot. There was something uplifting and motivating in Jersey that I connected to. It made me change my point of view towards life. All of us tend to spend a lot of time in self-pity, and in those spiraling thoughts we forget to move forward in life. There’s an inspiring emotional experience which audience will be able to relate to. What I experienced as an audience, I wished to make it reach out to the masses so that their outlook towards life changes.”

As Jersey marks Gowtham Tinnanuri’s directorial debut in Bollywood and Shahid had an experience of working with another Telugu director, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, in Kabir Singh, we ask if he noticed a difference in the way the two directors approached a project. He says the two are poles apart, both as an individual and also the way they direct. “They are as different as my characters, Arjun Talwar, a silent guy from Jersey and Kabir Singh, a hot-tempered man from Kabir Singh,” he adds.

From Dr Ananya Prabhu of Toofaan to playing Vidya in Jersey, Mrunal Thakur has been going places. She says, “I feel happy. I am thankful to directors and producers for giving me a chance to play different characters. Vidya is the most wholesome character that I have ever played.”

On playing a girlfriend, a wife and a mother in the same film, the actress says it was a rather organic transformation. “You don’t have to be a mother to play it on screen. And I clicked with Kittu, my son in the film played by Ronit Kamra, from the word go. He is a great actor and did justice to the role; he also played the same role in the original film. He reminded me of my younger brother, which helped me relate to my role all the more. All elder sisters are more of a mother to our brothers.”

On a funny note, Shahid shares how the lockdown got them worried about Ronit, for they were scared that he would grow a few inches taller and wouldn’t look like a kid anymore. “We used to call him frequently and asked to keep the same hair style. We often wondered if he had sprouted a beard,” says Shahid.

With a jam-packed schedule for 2022 with two films, Pippa and Aankh Micholi awaiting release, Mrunal is also shooting for two untitled projects. One will mark her  debut in Telugu industry and the other is a Hindi remake of Tamil film Thadam.

While the film release was delayed more than twice, and as Jersey finally hits the theatres in the IPL season, we wonder if the timing is right, especially right after the sports drama, Kaun Pravin Tambe. The actor says, “I think a film with a strong message or thought that will be remembered for years is what an actor should worry about. Timing is not in our control and so is the success of a project. Today, the word of mouth is more valuable than the first day collections, because we have seen movies that became a hit after a slow opening.”