WAVES 2025: Kesari Chapter 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi reveals that THIS memorable scene was improvised by Akshay Kumar; admits for the FIRST time that Ananya Panday’s character was inspired by Cornelia Sorabji

By Fenil Seta -

May 6, 2025 - 12:03 PM IST

On Day 3 of WAVES 2025, a session named ‘Old Ghost, New Generation: Portrayal of Colonial History in Indian Cinema and its Contemporary Relevance’ was held where the speaker was Karan Singh Tyagi, the director of the recently released acclaimed film, Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh. At this session, the filmmaker opened up for the first time about the inspiration behind Dilreet Gill, the character played by Ananya Panday.

WAVES 2025: Kesari Chapter 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi reveals that THIS memorable scene was improvised by Akshay Kumar; admits for the FIRST time that Ananya Panday’s character was inspired by Cornelia Sorabji

When the moderator asked if her character was inspired by Cornelia Sorabji, an impressed Karan Singh Tyagi said, “You are absolutely right. In fact, you are one of the very few people to get it right. It is definitely inspired by Cornelia Sorabji, India’s first female lawyer. For me, characters work when they operate at different levels. So, at one point, the character of Dilreet Gill is the moral centre of the film. She is the one who rattles Sankaran Nair (Akshay Kumar) and gets him to act and fight the case. But at the second layer, she herself is fighting male bias. She is a female lawyer in a world which is dominated by men. This is why Dilreet Gill’s character is extraordinary for me; she is the female lawyer at that time, going from one street in Amritsar to another, collecting evidence and then she has her own crowning moment when she argues in court.”

He continued, “Her family wants her to settle down. Her prospective groom has a problem – because she is a lawyer, he fears that she’ll argue at home! She counters that as well. Hence, the character is very important. I am so lucky that Ananya is a part of it. She has delivered a beautiful performance.”

When asked how they worked on Dilreet Gill’s look, Karan Singh Tyagi replied, “We looked at a lot of pictorial references of women lawyers of that time, Cornelia Sorabji being one of them. We modelled her look on Amrita Sher-Gil, the maverick painter of the early 1900s. Ananya went to the extent of shadowing a female lawyer in the Bombay High Court to understand courtroom mannerisms. She took dialect classes to get the Punjabi diction right. What you see on screen is the result of her hard work.”

At this session, Karan Singh Tyagi shared a fascinating trivia on how one of the most memorable scenes in Kesari Chapter 2 was improvised by Akshay Kumar, “There’s a scene where Maddy sir’s (R Madhavan) character offers a glass of water to a witness to gain sympathy. After doing so, the witness offers a testimony which is very helpful to the Crown’s case. Akshay sir’s character is just observing this whole thing play out. When the tables are turned and the witness is cross-examined by Ananya Panday, she breaks down. The witness delivers a confession.”

Karan Singh Tyagi continued, “We had got the take that we wanted. Before I could call ‘Cut’, I saw from the corner of my eye that Akshay sir started pouring a glass of water and he walked towards the witness. He offers her the glass. For Akshay sir’s character, it was a game of upmanship. It was a battle playing at different levels. It was Sankaran Nair trumping his biggest adversary!”

Also Read: WAVES 2025: Kesari Chapter 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi CONFESSES, “I walked 2 kms in snow to watch My Name Is Khan; summoned my ENTIRE Harvard class to watch the movie”; wishes to make a film on Dr B R Ambedkar