Siddharth Sen made his feature directorial debut with Good Luck Jerry. The film, which stars Janhvi Kapoor in the lead, has garnered praises from critics and viewers. It premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on July 29. The Free Press Journal recently caught up with the filmmaker for an exclusive chat.
When asked how he was feeling just before the release of the film since it is his first ever directorial feature, he shares, “I manifested this dream and it has come true. I was numb rather than excited as we came closer to the release.”
When quizzed about whether he aimed for a theatrical release instead of a digital release, he says, “I don’t deny that when I started shooting the film, it was supposed to be a theatrical film but since it is released digitally, I don’t regret it. We never imagined the pandemic thing to go for this long hence we took this decision.”
The film is a Hindi remake of a 2018 Tamil comedy drama Kolamaavu Kokila that starred Nayanthara. One wonders why he chose to attempt a remake in his first project. “The original film was so regional that it had a lot of scope to turn around and have a larger reach. I feel cinema has drastically changed. People see a theatrical film and an OTT film in a very different way. We are in a confused state of storytelling, no one actually knows what is working and what is not. One thing that excites me is that OTT has a bigger reach,” he explains.
He adds, “Also, your film is going to stay on an OTT platform. There is no fear of your film coming out of the theatres due to several reasons. In terms of creative liberty, I as a filmmaker had a free hand. Although, we had a few guidelines and censorship at the beginning of the project that’s not troublesome.”
Janhvi has been receiving great reviews for her performance. Siddharth spills the beans on working with her. “Nayanthara, who played the role in the original one, is a great superstar. When we were casting for the role, we thought about how we could change her character completely and make it our own. Since Janhvi came on board, she didn’t come with any added pressure since she is just a few films old. With Janhvi, we tried to make the character much more interesting, expressive and layered. When I and my writer narrated the script to her, she had slight self-doubt if she would be able to pull off the role or not and I think that worked for the film,” he concludes.
