Ayushmann Khurrana says he ‘snatched’ Andhadhun from Sriram Raghavan, had no idea it was a comedy: ‘People were laughing, I wondered why’

 

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Talking about how Sriram ‘auditioned’ him without his knowledge, Ayushmann shared, “He said, ‘We’ll jam on these scenes’. He was kind of auditioning me. I was like, ‘Let’s do this’. I had this excitement in me. Whenever a film comes to me, I treat it as my first film. It feels like the first project, give it your all. Until you have that excitement there is no fun in life.”

Ayushmann was also asked about the rumour that Sriram initially wanted the film’s teaser to just be audio. He said, “Yes, that’s true. That’s Sriram Raghavan. Dinesh Vijan told him (not to do that) even though he had nothing to do with the film. He is just Sriram’s friend, he is a separate producer. Andhadhun was produced by Matchbox and Viacom, but Dinesh, as a friend, told him ‘Sriram you can’t do this.’ He said how can you have an audio teaser in a video medium, you are not launching the teaser on radio. So, one needs to have friends like that also. Sriram Raghavan would end up making pure world cinema, but he is commercial also. One would say that marketing is not his zone, but the kind of films he makes, they have a standing, they have a following, the screenplay is very fast.”

 

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Ayushmann then also revealed how he and Tabu realised Andhadhun was a dark comedy only after they’d shot it. He said, “We also didn’t know that Andhadhun is going to be a funny film. Tabu and I were very serious, he didn’t tell us that it is a dark comedy.”

When asked if he and Tabu realised that the film is a comedy while shooting, Ayushmann said, “No! He didn’t tell us the genre. I was like going blind, literally. I was acting like I was blind and truly something very bad had happened to me. People were then laughing when the film was on edit, I didn’t understand why they were laughing. Because after going through that journey, you feel you have made a very serious film. There is a shock value, and because of that shock value people are laughing. Like, I am going inside the loo to pee and there is a guy standing there with a gun and people are laughing! I was like what’s there to laugh?”

Andhudhun emerged as a massive critical and commercial success. It was particularly successful in China, and has made over Rs 400 crore worldwide.