Farhad Samji revealed that producer Feroz Nadiadwala kept pushing for more actors, saying the size meant more faces on screen, which resulted in a cast of 35 for Welcome to the Jungle. Samji also praised Akshay Kumar’s resilience despite the recent failures, saying that he never thinks about failure. The comedy film is directed by Ahmed Khan and will be released on June 26.
Farhad Samji recently spoke about the sheer scope of Welcome to the Jungle. He said that the story needed a large crew, and that producer Feroz Nadiadwala wanted it to be larger. He also talked about how difficult it is to manage 35 actors at once, praised Akshay Kumar for maintaining a positive attitude despite some recent box office flops, and gave his opinion on the controversy surrounding box office numbers and a bloated budget.
Why did Feroze Nadiadwala keep pushing for more actors?
Speaking to Siddharth Kanan, Samji touched on the film’s unusually large cast, explaining that the script itself called for a large ensemble. “The film is about a group of actors who arrive in a village,” he recalls. “Even today, Feroz bhai (producer) is not satisfied with just 34 actors. He always says, ‘Bring more people. Make it bigger. We need scale.” And the scale comes from the faces you see on the screen. He was very passionate.
He kept saying, “The audience will enjoy it,” and that’s exactly what happened. In each frame, you have seven actors standing here, eight actors there, and another four somewhere else. This has become one of the biggest unique offerings behind Welcome’s success.
The text itself requires a large collection
He added that the scenario itself requires a large cast of actors, noting that “the scenario requires the arrival of between 20 and 25 actors, in addition to the hero and heroine, to this village. This is the way we dealt with the selection of actors.”
Samji talks about Akshay Kumar’s mentality
Samji also spoke about Akshay Kumar’s mindset after some of his recent films were not good. He said, “Akshay’s philosophy is simple: keep moving forward. I have never seen him sit and evaluate failures in the sense of becoming depressed or letting them affect him deeply. Everyone wants every film to become a hit, but that doesn’t always happen. I have never seen Akshay Kumar sit there and say: ‘Oh, what happened?’ He always says: ‘Move forward in life.’
“And that’s something I learn from him too. He’s a star, and he’ll always be a star.”
About “Welcome to the Jungle”
‘Welcome to the Jungle’ is the third film in the ‘Welcome’ series and features one of the biggest actors seen in Bollywood in recent times. The film stars Akshay Kumar, and also stars Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Rajpal Yadav, and Jacqueline Fernandez.
Disha Patani
Raveena Tandon, Lara Dutta, Johnny Lever, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff and many more. The comedy film, directed by Ahmed Khan, is scheduled to hit theaters on June 26.
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