Director Indrajit Lankesh opens up on why Richa Chadha’s ‘Shakeela’ is strikingly different from ‘The Dirty Picture’

Richa Chadha is all set to enthral the audiences with her upcoming film ‘Shakeela’. The film is a biopic of adult star Shakeela, who ruled the South Indian film industry for over two decades. The makers of the ‘Shakeela’ recently unveiled its trailer and soon Twitterati couldn’t help but compare it to Vidya Balan’s ‘The Dirty Picture’ which was inspired from the life of Silk Smitha.

In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble, ‘Shakeela’s director Indrajit Lankesh revealed how his film is entirely different from ‘The Dirty Picture’. The filmmaker also opened up about why he felt Richa Chadha is the best actress to do justice to Shakeela’s role.

The trailer of ‘Shakeela’ opens with the suicide of actress Silk Smitha. When Silk Smitha’s stardom started fading, it was Shakeela who grabbed her spotlight and went on to become one of the celebrated sex symbols of the 90s. With both the actresses being a sex symbol, netizens started comparing ‘Shakeela’ with ‘The Dirty Picture’.

When asked if he was in any way inspired by the Vidya Balan starrer, Indrajit said, “No ..not really. They both came from different background. When Silk’s career was going downhill, Shakeela became a superstar. In fact, both of them acted together in a film called ‘Play Girl’. Apart from that, it is a completely different film, a different genre altogether. ‘Shakeela’ is more real and there are more realistic characters in the film. And it has a very subtle message not just for women but for the whole society.”

 

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In ‘Shakeela’ for the first time, we will get to see Richa Chadha play a sex-symbol. This also happens to be the first biopic of her career. Talking about what made him cast Richa as Shakeela, Indrajit said, “Generally while making biopic makers try to find a lookalike. Like someone, who resembles the character in terms of size, height or feature. But for me, that was not the criteria at all. Finding someone who looked like Shakeela would have been very easy but what if she couldn’t act?”

 

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The director further elaborated, “Because after ten minutes of the film based on a real person you will have to get someone talented, someone, who acts well. Realistic acting is the toughest and Richa does that best without going over the top. When it comes to giving justice to the character, Richa has done that even before. This is one of the biggest films of Richa as a lead and the title is on her and being a biopic on another actress that’s a challenge and Richa has done a superb job. I am more than happy.”

Also starring Pankaj Tripathi, ‘Shakeela’ will hit the silver screens on December 25.

Also Read: ‘Shakeela’ Teaser: Richa Chadha in and as Shakeela promises to bring the audience back to cinema halls

Pooja Sharma

Cinephile. Bibliophile. Pluviophile. Selenophile. Autophile. Aesthete. Blood group- Tea positive. Poetry lover. Sucker of rom-coms.

PS: Sharmaji ki Ladki sucks at writing bios.
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