Mere Dad Ki Maruti sequel likely to take off by year-end

Saqib Saleem

“I wanted to grow up,” says Saqib Saleem about his decision of being a part of Amole Gupte’s Hawaa Hawaai which sees him as a skating coach. While the backdrop of the film is sports, which was one of the reasons for the actor to do the film, emotions remain the crux of it. “I realised that I needed to show that there can be a layer of maturity in my performance. I was 22 when I did Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge, now I’m 26, so my performance needs to grow as well. Moreover, I didn’t want to miss the chance of working with a director like Amole Gupte,” confesses Saqib.
The actor also had to learn skating for the film, apart from bringing in other variations. Explains Saqib, “I learned the sport. While I haven’t aced it, I do know to skate now. I had to learn everything about it because Amole sir doesn’t like to give dialogues to children so I had to be prepared for the questions the kids would ask me.” The most challenging part though, was to speak slowly. “I have a habit of talking too fast but my character cannot talk fast. I had to realise that I was not playing a 19-year old anymore. So every time I would go to the set, I was more afraid of how I was going to say the lines,” he adds.
While Hawaa Hawaai is set for a May release, talks about the sequel to his film Mere Dad Ki Maruti have been doing rounds for a while now. Ask him about it, and he says, “I think we should start the film towards the end of this year. The problem is to crack the right plot. People have loved the film, so we don’t want to just make a sequel for the sake of it. For me, the best series has been Munnabhai because you can’t make out which part was better.”
As far as the characters are concerned, Prabal Punjabi, who played Gattu, will also be part of the film along with Saqib. “It’ll be another chapter in my character Sameer and Gattu’s life. There can’t be a sequel without them. The rest of the characters may change,” states the actor.

 

TV actor Mishal Raheja plays a writer in his debut film

Television actor Mishal Raheja, known for his roles in shows like Anurag Basu’s Love Story and Laagi Tujhse Lagan, has been working on his debut film for a while now. The shoot of the film has wrapped up and it may be expected to release in the next few months. Talking about his role, Raheja says, “I play a Bollywood film writer, a chilled-out and happy-go-lucky guy who loves life, so there’s not much that I needed to prepare, except for growing my hair. I almost had to grow shoulder-length hair for the film.”
The film also stars a New York-based actress Khatera Hakimi. As of now, the working title of the film is Budget Trip. Raheja is also excited about the film’s music. “I think the music has turned out very nice. One of the songs is sung by Sonu Nigam, and another by Mika,” he shares. Budget Trip is directed by debutante director Chetan Morada. Recently, Raheja was also seen in Sony’s show Encounter, hosted by Manoj Bajpayee, in the role of a cop.