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‘Ananya Panday shadowed a lawyer, took dialect classes; Akshay Kumar understood the core emotion,’ says Kesari 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi

Kesari Chapter 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi said that the film's actors - Akshay Kumar, R Madhavan and Ananya Panday, delivered incredible performances.

Ananya Panday and Akshay Kumar in a still from Kesari Chapter 2.

Kesari Chapter 2, directed by Karan Singh Tyagi, received largely good reviews upon its release and at the ongoing Waves Summit 2025, Karan praised actors, Akshay Kumar, R Madhavan and Ananya Panday, for delivering “incredible performances” in the film. During the SCREEN panel discussion titled ‘Old Ghosts, New Generation: Portrayal of Colonial History in Indian Cinema and its Relevance’, Karan called Akshay and Madhavan “powerhouses of talent” and shared that Akshay understood his intention behind making the film pretty early on. He also spoke about Ananya’s preparation for her character.

“Akshay understood pretty early on that we were making the film for two reasons. One, we were making the film to honour the lives of people who died at Jallianwala Bagh. They came to celebrate Baisakhi and they left as martyrs. We wanted to honour their sacrifice. So he understood that core emotion and he also understood that we are bringing to light, a person’s life that the world doesn’t know about, which is Sankaran Nair. He came on board as far as these two emotions are concerned,” he shared.

Karan also spoke about R Madhavan’s fictional character Neville McKinley and said, “As far as R Madhavan is concerned, he is a stalwart. And we are so lucky that he played a part in our film.” He added, “Every great protagonist requires a very strong antagonist and for us, Maddy sir was that. So when Maddy sir enters the courtroom, we wanted the audience to feel that Sankaran Nair has a worthy opponent, that Sankaran Nair can lose the case.”

ALSO READ | Kesari 2: Britain is yet to apologise for the horrors of Jallianwala Bagh while ‘Hitler’ General Dyer’s family remembers him as an ‘honourable man’

Speaking about Ananya’s character Dilreet Gill, Karan said, “I have put in very little effort, it was Ananya who put in a lot of effort in creating the character of Dilreet Gill along with me.” He further shared, “We looked up at a lot of pictorial references of women lawyers of that time, Cornelia Sorabji being one of them. We modeled her look on Amrita Shergill. And 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 Punjab diction right and what you see on screen is a result of her hard work.”

Kesari Chapter 2 is still in theatres.

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