Vishal Bhardwaj opened up on one of the scenes from Haider where Shahid Kapoor’s performance left him in awe.
Earlier this week, Vishal Bhardwaj’s political crime thriller Haider completed ten years. The film, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was well-received by the critics and the audience, especially for the superlative performances.
In a recent interaction with ETimes, Vishal walked down the memory lane and shared one of his most memorable scenes from the film. He recalled how Shahid Kapoor left him impressed with his heart wrenching performance in the scene where his character breaks down after discovering his father’s grave.
The ‘Omkara’ director shared, “There’s a moment in the film where Shahid finally finds his father’s grave, and he breaks down. I had prepped Shahid. We wanted to shoot with a telephoto lens, so that camera was really far. I told Shahid, “Don’t feel insecure because it’s not a close-up. It was actually a very big close-up, and creatively we wanted to shoot it with the tele-lens from very far. He performed that scene so beautifully.”
Vishal continued, “He started crying, and we have two cameras capturing it. The way he was crying, I didn’t have the heart to shout cut. The camera was 400 meters away, and in the snow, I walked up to him, let him cry, and then hugged him saying, ‘It’s cut, Shahid. It’s done.'”
Further, the filmmaker also revealed that he had thought of a different setting for Haider where the film was supposed to be set in an espionage background. However when Gulzar read the script, he pointed out how it felt like just another CIA movie with the tragedy of Hamlet in it. Vishal too, agreed with his observation. Later, he remembered how his wife Rekha Bhardwaj had reacted after reading Basharat Peer’s book ‘Curfewed Night’. So, he too read the book and realised that he always wanted to make a film on Kashmir. Eventually, everything fell in place, and Haider was born.
Haider stars Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Shraddha Kapoor, late Irrfan Khan and Kay Kay Menon in leading roles.
