Privilege to show Kareena as actor and not star in 'The Buckingham Murders' Hansal Mehta

Mumbai, Sep 20 (PTI) Filmmaker Hansal Mehta says it was a privilege to present Kareena Kapoor Khan as an actor and not as a star in "The Buckingham Murders", which helped him bring out an unseen side of the actor.
    The UK-set murder mystery features the actor in the role of Jasmeet Bhamra aka Jass, a cop grieving the death of her child who is tasked with the investigation of a missing child.
    "It's been a great privilege to have Kareena (in this film) and for her to play this character, to explore Kareena beyond Kareena the star, and to simply showcase Kareena the actor to the world,” the filmmaker told PTI in an interview.
    Mehta, 56, said the actor understood the demands of her character and accordingly played it to perfection.
     “I don't brief characters to actors. But we read the script together several times and we decided to go with our instincts. We knew that the film needed a certain number of internal things, the character had to look inward rather than outward. So, this is a person who has kept grief completely suppressed,” he said.
    The director's personal experiences significantly influenced the film. Mehta was coping grieving the death of his father and father-in-law while working on the movie, and that "sense of loss" found expression in the film, which goes beyond a simple murder investigation.
    “Two people so very close people passed away just before the film was made. So, there’s grief that I still go through and that grief sort of found expression in this film. But it's very internal.
    "While I was grieving, I was also continuing with my work. Grief is so much about people trying to cope, more than just sitting and grieving and mourning,” he said.
    “The Buckingham Murders” also addresses pertinent societal issues, including communalism, economic instability, and LGBTQI and Mehta said the plot of the murder mystery allowed him dig deeper and explore life in what is seen as a first-world country.
    "We believe that people who live here are leading this idyllic life. So, I just wanted to explore the other side of this life through the murder mystery,” Mehta, known for hard-hitting movies like “Shahid”, “Omerta”, and “Aligarh”, said.
    The filmmaker said he wanted to go beyond the tourist-centric imagery of the UK and showcase the “unseen and authentic” facets of London through the film.
    “This is not the London that you see all the time, like Big Ben, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus.... It is none of those things. This is the London in which people live, struggle for survival or where people live in their small little silos.
    "Also, in terms of the language, I wanted to be authentic. For example, when Kareena speaks to a white actor, she's talking in English, but with the Asians, she speaks in Hindi or Punjabi, that's how people live in foreign countries,” he added.
    “The Buckingham Murders”, which marks the production debut of Kapoor Khan, is also produced by Ektaa Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under Balaji Telefilms and TBM Films. It also stars Ash Tandon, Ranveer Brar, and Keith Allen.
    Mehta’s next is a web series “Gandhi” based on historian and author Ramachandra Guha's books — “Gandhi before India” and “Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World”.
    The show features “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story” star Pratik Gandhi in the title role.
    "I feel very honoured and grateful that I've been able to do this (show on Gandhi),” the filmmaker said, adding that post-production is underway.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)