With Kai Po Che! filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor introduced three comparatively new faces to mainstream cinema - Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh. Sushant and Amit came along with their impressive body of work in several television shows, whereas Rajkummar Rao had impressed the audience with his new-age 'middle of the road' cinema. However, Kai Po Che! was the movie which brought these three stars into limelight and gave them instant mainstream success. As the film completes ten years, here's what Sushant Singh Rajput, filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor and casting director Mukesh Chhabra said about how the film changed their world. Kai Po Che! is based on Chetan Bhagat's 2008 novel 'The 3 Mistakes of My Life'. The film is about three friends (SSR as Ishaan, Rajkummar Rao as Govind and Amit Sadh as Omkar) start an academy to train aspiring cricketers. But before they realise their goals, they experience an earthquake, an unstable political situation and communal riots. The thrill of starting this journey with a new team hungry 2 give their best at the dawn of their careers stands most vividly in mind..One cant quantify the love our film continues to receive over the years, neither can we quantify the pain we feel at the loss of our crown jewel pic.twitter.com/oTvhal9UOu — Abhishek Kapoor (@Abhishekapoor) February 22, 2021 In an earlier interview with The Indian Express, Abhishek Kapoor had shared, "For this film, it was important for the three boys to share a good chemistry." So after individually auditioning them, he had done a screen test of them together, just to be sure. As industry insiders say, Abhishek has a knack for choosing the right actors and bringing the best out of them, and that's exactly what he did. In another interview with indianexpress.com, the filmmaker had recalled that to translate the film’s multiple subplots and historical events on screen, was a challenge. But considering everyone gave their hundred percent, they managed to pull it off. "It wasn’t an easy movie. It was shot in Gujarat at the peak of summer, in 50 degrees. That was extremely painful. I remember people used to faint on camera. Then to shoot those riots sequences and bring everything to life. Making it was so real for us, it was like being in the movie. It was our life at that point of time." "But one thing was consistent, like a thread running through every crew member — the excitement. Everybody was at the same creative trajectory. Everyone has a graph and we managed to find them at the right time on that graph to coincide all those energies,” Abhishek had reminisced. Kai Po Che! was a unique coming-of-age story, adept with friendship, aspirations, new love, heartbreaks, falling and getting back on your feet, with all three characters having a steep graph. Abhishek explained why he picked lesser known actors, despite the initial choice of bigger stars. “We did try to have big names initially. But it wasn’t written that way. It was about friendship, where they were equals. It would have been a nightmare to handle three big stars. The next logical step was to find new people. And I’d already done that with Rock On, as Farhan (Akhtar) was also starting off then. I had a good sense of working with new people as long as I felt the connection with them,” Abhishek shared about the film's casting process. Crediting casting director Mukesh Chhabra for putting his confidence in Sushant, Rajkummar and Amit, Abhishek added, "I was searching for that vibe. And these three just looked like they were friends. The way they interacted convinced me that they had the chemistry. That’s what method acting is. Even off screen, they were constantly maintaining the energy between each other and that manifested onscreen too. We cast all three of them together. You see their journey today, and then imagine how it would’ve been for me having all three of them on my set." Kai Po Che! remains one of the best works of Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor died in June 2020. On the eight anniversary of the film, casting director Mukesh Chhabra had shared a rare video footage of the three actors enacting a scene from the movie. Here’s celebrating 8 years of friendship #8YearsOfKaiPoChe Cast By #MCCC🤗🙌🏻@CastingChhabra #SushantSinghRajput @RajkummarRao @TheAmitSadh #AmritaPuri @Abhishekapoor @utvfilms pic.twitter.com/VUVB417z7o — MCCC (@MukeshChhabraCC) February 22, 2021 In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, Chhabra had described his first meeting with Sushant and how they ended up being friends. He had said, "I met Sushant at Chai Coffee. After that, he had come to my office to meet me. Shobha Sant had made me meet Sushant Singh Rajput once again. That was the first time I had seen him, and after that, I tested him, and then cast him for Kai Po Che!." Sushant rose to fame instantly and garnered a lot of love. The star had told indianexpress.com in an interview that with Kai Po Che!, "I have got my due". He had revealed how he prayed to get the part in the film. He had said, "I auditioned for this role and I was just praying to God that somehow or the other I be a part of this film. I know my craft well and I am a convincing actor and a hardworking one. I knew one day I will get my due in the industry. Kai Po Che is that due," he had also shared that he got quite attached to the role as, "the thought of me not playing Ishaan’s character again was quite painful."
