Team Black Warrant shines

Two-and-half months ago, Black Warrant dropped on Netflix and it continues to be among the top 10 shows! As its lead stars Zahan Kapoor and Rahul Bhat, along with its acclaimed showrunner Vikramaditya Motwane and Sameer Nair, CEO Applause Entertainment, came calling on day three of Cinevesture International Film Festival, their synergy was more than evident.

Undeniably, the same chemistry would have prevailed on the sets. Bhat, seen as DSP Tomar in the series, in fact, shared how the days of actors dominating, kha jaunga their co-actors, are long over. He added, “Those who still believe in outdoing each other are frauds and not genuine actors.” Thus both he and Zahan helped bring out the best in each other. On the process of getting into the skin of a negative character, Bhat said, “Even if you are playing a villain, you have to be empathetic; it’s like you are representing him, you are his lawyer.”

If Bhat, who started his journey with television series Heena, only performs for his director, Zahan goes an extra mile. Involved in the making of the series from the word go, the young actor even made notes for every single scene of the seven-episode series. “Shooting for 51 days for five different directors, that too in a non-linear manner, was like a whiplash,” Zahan asserted.

Indeed, from the makers’ point of view, Motwane agreed, “Many directors with one showrunner is a model that truly works well and has proved its efficacy the world over.” Nair chipped in with classic refrain, “It takes a village to make a film and raise a child.” Of course, when the child already has a parent, the author, in this case Sunil Gupta, on whose memoirs of Tihar jail, the series is based, things could get complicated. Motwane agreed that reading a book for pleasure and for adaptation were two different beasts. “So, you often have to dramatise the proceedings.” As Nair put it, “On the face, it was counter-intuitive to make a series on Tihar jail with literally no strong women characters. Yet, Netflix loved it.” And so did the audiences!