A long way to go

After working in films like Nayee Padosan, Fun2shh, Naina and Chingari, Anuuj Sawhney is quite excited about his role in Deepak Tijori's Tom Dick & Harry produced by Surendra Bhatia and Ranjan Prakash, who had earlier made the film Fun.
 
Talking about the film when I met him for this interview, Anuuj says.

"I play the role of blind Deepak who gets rechristened as Dick in the film, in which Dino Morea, Jimmy Shergill and I play the tenants in Happy Singh's (Rakesh Bedi) house."

"Mine is a very loud and boisterous character full of life, who gets into various problems."
 
"While Dino plays the deaf, Jimmy plays the mute guy in the film. Though Kim Sharma who plays the fisherwoman falls for Tom, all three of us chase Celina Jaitley who moves in as our neighbour."

Experience

Anuuj says he had a wonderful experience working on the sets.

He says. "We had a laid back time. If all of us have really got into the skin of our characters, the credit ought to go entirely to Deepak Tijori, who made it a point to give each of us three different way of the physicality involved in our characters, because we had a very thin line to look credible."
 
"Deepak in fact made me practise watching beyond the objects. Our chemistry off screen helped all of us to live our roles."

"We used to keep pulling each other's legs while shooting. I also became the butt of the pranks of Dino and Jimmy one day when I became helpless when they spiked the water with vodka and I couldn't do a thing because I realised it only when I was giving the shot. Once all three of us spiked Celina's coffee with tequila too."

Fine-tuning

Anuuj does not hesitate to admit that Deepak helped him to get the fine-tuning of the character in a comic situation, because generally the blind are reserved.

Anuuj says, "In Tom Dick & Harry, Dick is a jovial and confident character. Thanks to the synergy level that we had managed to generate, a lot of things happened on the sets, which were not there in the script. Deepak was hands on, on the sets. As an actor, Deepak knows what an actor feels when and how."

Psychiatrist

"When I played the psychiatrist boyfriend of Urmila Matondkar who was blind in Naina, I had gone to Father Agnes Blind School in Mulund, to learn the physicality of the blind people."

"To get into the skin of the character of Dick in Tom Dick & Harry, I made it a point to rely on my sense of smelling after blind folding myself for at least 15 minutes every day at home."

Besides Tom Dick & Harry, Anuuj is equally excited about yet another film called Brides Wanted in which his co-stars are Girish Karnad, Waheeda Rehman and Sara Jain (VJ of Get Gorgeous on V Channel).

Arranged marriage

Anuuj says, "I play the role of an NRI, Akash, in the film. Though the film has been made in English, it is also being dubbed in Hindi. Girishji and Waheedaji play my grandparents in the film. Akash comes to India to look for a bride because he feels that the concept of arranged marriage had worked very well for his parents."
 
"Brides Wanted is a satire on how the Indian woman has changed due to the advent of the western civilisation over the years."

Practical

Tom Dick & Harry will be Anuuj's fifth film.

Anuuj is very practical when it comes to the success or failure of his films. Till date not even a single film of his has clicked.

Anuuj says, "I give my best shot to every film of mine, whether it was Nayee Padosan or Fun2sh or for that matter Chingari or Tom Dick & Harry, though at the same time I'd like to assert that I make it a point not to get emotionally attached to the films in which I act, because you can never predict which film would click and which would flop when you are working in a film."

Big banners

"However, I have this gut feeling that with Tom Dick & Harry I'd be finally saddled with a hit as far as my career is concerned, though I do concede that it is only the audience, which can make a film a hit."

Right now, Anuuj does not want to talk about two new films, which he has signed with big banners, because he feels that it would be more appropriate if the announcement comes from the production houses themselves.

Anuuj feels that his career hasn't even begun as far as Bollywood is concerned. "I feel I have several more miles to tread and a long way to go before I can carve a niche for myself in Bollywood. Right now I feel I am too new and too young. I am keen on working with the best of the banners and directors. I am raring to go."

It's not possible to predict which film will click

- Anuuj admits that Deepak Tijori helped him to get the fine-tuning of the character in a comic situation.

- "When I played the psychiatrist boyfriend of Urmila Matondkar who was blind in Naina, I had gone to Father Agnes Blind School in Mulund, to learn the physicality of the blind people."

- Anuuj is equally excited about yet another film called Brides Wanted in which his co-stars are Girish Karnad, Waheeda Rehman and Sara Jain.

- "Brides Wanted is a satire on how the Indian woman has changed due to the advent of the western civilisation over the years."

- "I make it a point not to get emotionally attached to the films in which I act, because you can never predict which film would click and which would flop when you are working in a film."