Varun Dhawan: ABCD2 is not just another masala film

It was a pleasant sight to see the young stars of ABCD2 Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor shake a leg with just a request from the media people present at the press conference at Meydan on Thursday.

Dhawan and Kapoor are here to attend the Arab Indo Bollywood Awards where Dhawan is one of the performers and to promote their film ABCD2 which is releasing on June 18.

“Let me start by saying that the Dubai media is extremely courteous and well mannered. I genuinely mean this. It’s a very pleasant sight,” Dhawan said opening the briefing while Kapoor followed by singing a couple of lines from the newly released song Sun Saathiya from the film.

“I feel like dancing also now that I’m singing this song,” Kapoor said. “You’ll hear the song in the film of course but I’ve never sung it before. This is only for you guys”.

The film takes Dhawan, Kapoor and a bunch of dancers all the way from Mumbai to Las Vegas for a dance show. The Remo D’Souza dance film is the story inspired from that of an actual Indian band from a small town near Mumbai, D’Souza who was absent from the press meet had said in an earlier interview.

“Las Vegas was a blast,” said Dhawan. “We shot at the Grand Canyon where I jumped from one mountain to another. It was incredible and what’s really nice about it was we had to behave like these culturally shocked guys in the film but it actually happened to us because we were on the roads and seeing these street musicians and performers, the lights and ziplines.

"We went everywhere. We tried to shoot as rugged, as raw – the Las Vegas from that point of view. So I think it will be extremely enjoyable for the audience to see that”.

“Varun is a great dancer but I’m doing it for the first time and that too in a dance film. It’s very special to be part of such a film because I’ve wanted to dance ever since I was a girl. And the only opportunity I had was at birthday parties or in front of the mirror in my room. I got to experience 18-20 styles of dancing.

"We are very fortunate that Remo sir wanted us to make two actors dance and then we are playing real characters and to top it all we get to go to Vegas. The fact that we play real dancers who’ve come from Nalasopara [a place near Mumbai] so the whole journey of going to Las Vegas and the way it is portrayed is very, very  exciting,” said Kapoor.

“Honestly," said Varun Dhawan, "it has been extremely joyous because as actors we don’t get to dance apart from the little we do. This was exciting because we got to do contemporary, we got to do crumping, cutting, house, hip hop, aerial silk and something on the global level.

"I can’t comment on whether the film itself will be good or will do well but I can guarantee the dances are right up there because we have some of the best dancers who’ve performed with Beyoncé, Trinity which is a well-known group, we got Filipino All Stars.

"We are battling with the best groups in the world and we’ve been trained by a fictitious group from India which ranked seventh in the world at the time. The film is based on their story. There’s a lot of reality in the film and is not just another masala film. And I feel that people in this part of the world, including Indians will connect to this story”.

ABCD2 releases on June 18 in the UAE with a worldwide release on June 19. The film is a Disney production and will also be screened in 3-D.