EXCLUSIVE: Deepika Padukone REVEALS how she signed Meghna Gulzar’s Chhapaak

December 24, 2019 - 11:10 AM IST

Meghna Gulzar's directorial Chhappak has created a new wave of confidence and managed to arrest the attention of the viewers with its intriguing trailer and posters. The film, starring Deepika Padukone, is based on the life and struggles of an acid attack survivor based on the life of Laxmi Agarwal. The most impactful trailer of the year leaves you worried about the rising crimes against women.

EXCLUSIVE: Deepika Padukone REVEALS how she signed Meghna Gulzar’s Chhapaak

Speaking EXCLUSIVELY to Bollywood Hungama, Deepika Padukone spoke about what drove her to say yes to the film immediately. “As far as the decision to do the film was concerned, it was instant. Even though I was looking at doing a film, last year when Meghna came and when I was lining up a bunch of meetings and I was meeting different writers and directors, Meghna was ideally aware that I would like to do something that is more contemporary, maybe a love story. At the same time, I also knew, looking at her last two films, she tends to do films that are meaningful. I was like sure but I would still like to take a meeting with Meghna Gulzar, of course,” she said.

Recalling the first day of their meeting, Deepika further revealed, “She walked in and those moments, for me, are so clear. The movie experience might be a blur but the moment she walked into my office and we did our first meeting, those moments I’ll never forget. She walked in and she doesn’t speak much. She is very somber. She comes in and opens her laptop and she is like ‘Ready?’ Then, she starts reading. And in literally two scenes, I looked at her and said, ‘I've found my next film. I am doing this’. She looked up and said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Yeah! I am doing this. We can continue if we have to continue but I am doing this film.’ So, the decision to do that was instant.”

Meghna Gulzar quickly added, “Then, we continued talking and then I realized that I needed to hug her. It happened like 15 minutes later.”

“We were talking, talking and talking and suddenly she realized, ‘I need to hug you’. Because it took her that much time to realize that I had actually said yes. I think maybe in her mind she thought it was a long shot for a reason. This is how I have made my decisions. I don’t process much, don’t think too much and I am very instinctive. It was also with the honesty with which she was narrating the story to me. I could see the honesty in every pore of her body. I could tell that she is someone who will, of course, she has a very compelling, interesting and exciting story to tell, but she is also going to do equal justice to it. Both of those things are so important. As an actor, you come across great subjects and stories but somewhere you are like ‘I am not sure if this director will be able to do full justice to it.’ This was just like I could see the honesty in her eyes and I was like ‘This is it’. She couldn’t fathom it for the longest time,” Deepika added.

Directed by Meghna Gulzar, produced by Fox Star Studios, Deepika Padukone’s KA Production, Meghna Gulzar & Govind Singh Sandhu’s Mriga Films, written by Atika Chohan and Meghna Gulzar, Chhapaak is set to hit theatres on 10th January 2020.