Bhuvan Bam says he kept mouthing dialogues of his co-stars on Taaza Khabar: ‘I had the hangover of BB Ki Vines’

Bhuvan Bam, who is also attached as a producer on the show, told indianexpress.com that he was sold on the one-liner that writers Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal narrated him and started working on it simultaneously with Dhindora– a YouTube comedy series where he plays multiple characters. What he was not convinced of was if he could play the character of Vasya– a stark contrast from his image of a funny man.

“I thought this was the perfect show to make my OTT debut because of the one liner that I was told. We started developing this project simultaneously with Dhindora. We would write Taaza Khabar one day, Dhindora the other day. Earlier I wasn’t convinced about playing Vasya, but they both made me feel that Vasya is Bhuvan. They said, ‘How you are in real life is what we want to show Vasya as.’ Then there wasn’t any more discussion about it in the room,” he said.

Bhuvan Bam was slightly unsure how he would be in a space that is dramatic, fictional and involves multiple actors playing several characters. “To come out of that space, where I was doing comedy, playing all the characters to doing something like this where there is drama, thrill, a very different side to the character… Gradually when we started reading (I became more comfortable) and when I met these amazing actors on set, the conviction became stronger.”

But it wasn’t all that smooth for Bhuvan, who realised that after years of playing multiple characters in his sketches and shows, its effects would naturally trickle down when he was playing a solo part. So, on the sets of Taaza Khabar, Bhuvan said his co-stars made him realise that he had started to mouth their lines as well in between takes.

“I would mouth lines of my co-stars! Shreya, Deven sir and I have discussed this individually with each other. In BB Ki Vines, when I am performing a character, I am used to knowing the lines of other characters as well. I shot Dhindora also the same way. I got on to the sets of Taaza Khabar with that hangover, so I knew Deven sir’s lines, Shriya’s lines and Prathmesh’s too.

“And everyone told me, ‘Why are you murmuring our dialogues?’ I would repeat what they’d say! Then when people told me that they have noticed this, I saw the footages of all three where I am moving my lips and (mouthing their lines). I realsied that this is something I have to stop!”

Set in South Mumbai, Taaza Khabar follows the life of a shauchalaya worker, Vasant Gawde, aka Vasya, whose mundane and poverty-stricken life turns upside down when a simple ‘dua’ from a good deed gives him surreal powers. “Along with his tight-knit squad of friends, he uses his newfound super-power to master his own destiny until karma beckons again,” the official synopsis of the show reads.

Bhuvan Bam says Taaza Khabar is an important project at this stage of his career and considers it to be an “audition” for something bigger. “Every day feels like a dream. As a kid, I had always dreamed of doing this– if not exactly this. I always imagined myself standing in the middle of a stage with a sea of people around me.

“That’s the dream I have always worked towards… This show means everything to me. It is my debut in the OTT space. I will treat this as an audition for something bigger in life. This is the first baby step towards acting for me,” he concluded.

Taaza Khabar will start streaming from January 6 on Disney Plus Hotstar.