Raj and DK reveal Dulquer Salmaan was finalised for Guns & Gulaabs a week before filming began; had to ‘pull Gulshan Devaiah by teeth’

They started off by talking about Rajkummar, the first actor they thought about when they decided to make the show. Raj shared, “Him for the role of Tipu was given, and that was kind of fixed because we knew what he could deliver. This was the second time we were working with him. We knew what we could do in Stree with him. I always told Raj that I always find (him) funny even in your serious roles. What I meant was, that there’s a certain excitement when you watch him even as a devilish character. There’s something that makes you smile, there are a few actors who are exciting to watch.”

DK added that Rajkummar brought an “extra dimension” to the role of Panna Tipu, just like Manoj Bajpayee did to his role in The Family Man and Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi did in Farzi. “There are a lot of actors who do what needs to be done. They do a good job and when you watch it, you are like, ‘He was perfect for the role, he did a good job.’ Then there are some actors who bring an extra dimension, beyond what’s in the script. I can say that very easily about how Manoj Bajpayee get in Family Man, even Shahid (Kapoor) and Vijay Sethupathi did that in Farzi, and now I can say that about Rajkummar. He has also done that in Stree and I can see that happen even here. He has a very good grip on his character.”

The director recalled shooting the scene in which Tipu goes to Ganchi Junior and asks to be inducted into his gang. DK said that Rajkummar brought such an unexpected emotion to the scene that they were forced to rewrite future episodes to match his energy.

Rajkummar Rao in in Guns and Gulaabs.

“He brought in just the right amount of emotion into it. It wasn’t calculated, it wasn’t planned. I was not expecting it, but he brought it into it. As soon as the take was over, I went to Raj and told him that this was not what I was expecting, but this was way more good, and I don’t want to change it. As soon as I came back, I remember calling Raj, and we started re-writing all the subsequent scenes that follow in the next couple of episodes to fall in line with this kind of emotion that he brought in,” shared DK.

Casting of Dulquer Salmaan

DK remembered how casting Dulquer Salmaan as Arjun Verma was a “fun thing”. The duo recalled how the actor was cast just a week before the show went on the floors.

Raj said, “He was an exciting idea for me,” and DK added, “We got him a little late in the game. We hadn’t planned for it originally. We had a North Indian character written in and we had approached an actor as well who had some kind of dates issue and it didn’t get resolved until the last minute.”

Raj shared how Dulquer was “sweet enough” to agree to be a part of the show. “We just had to do one phone call with him and explain his character to him. He didn’t even know the story, and he just jumped in. We were on the location, we were ready to shoot…”

Dulquer Salmaan as Arjun Verma in Guns and Gulaabs.

DK elaborated, “We called him on January 4 and we started shooting on January 9. Because he was gone for the Christmas and New Year vacation, we couldn’t reach him from December 20 till January 4. When we finally reached out to him, we told him we start shooting next week and you will have to join us in two weeks. He said, ‘It’s bit of a short notice, but I am in. Just tell me about my character’.”

Raj and DK worked on Dulquer’s character Arjun while shooting for the show, and kept “tweaking” it as they went along. But Dulquer got a grip on it and “submitted” to their vision entirely.

On casting Adarsh Gourav

Raj promised that Adarsh would be a “revelation to everybody”. DK watched him in The White Tiger and was blown away by his performance. He said, “He is very very good in the film.” He realised what Adarsh is capable of ,and said, “He is capable of doing whatever you throw at him. He is also a method actor in that sense, more than anybody else. He doesn’t break character. The entire month that we were in Dehradun, and shooting his chunk, when I saw him in the hotel, walking around, going to the gym, at lunch, at dinner, to me it looked like I was looking at Ganchi Junior, minus the costume. His body language, the way he was talking, he was that. I asked him, ‘Are you not going to break character?’ He was like, ‘No sir, I am here for a month, so I am going to stay in this character. Once I go back, I will break character.’ That’s how he has been.”

Adarsh Gourav as Ganchi Jr in Guns and Gulaabs.

How did Gulshan Devaiah agree to be a part of Guns and Gulaabs?

But casting Gulshan for the role of Atmaram was not easy as he was “hesitant”. Raj said, “We had to pull him by his teeth. He didn’t want to listen to the character because he knew he wouldn’t be able to say no. I said, ‘You have to do this, I can’t think of any other person.’ It took a lot of time to get him.” DK remembered how it also “got cancelled a couple of times.”

He shared, “There were some shooting conflicts also. We had to shoot it in Feb or March and he suddenly was not available for that entire month. So, we either had the option of recasting or we were like cancel all the shooting of this month and put it in the next month.”

Gulshan Devaiah in Guns and Gulaabs.

However, eventually, they managed to get the actor on board and built a strong primary cast for their show.