The much-anticipated upcoming show Gandhi will mark the reunion of director Hansal Mehta and actor Pratik Gandhi, who previously collaborated on the successful SonyLIV series Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story in 2020. The duo has now opened up about the show, explaining how they tried to humanise Mahatma Gandhi in it.
Mehta said that shooting in long form allows them to explore the character of Mahatma Gandhi. The filmmaker said that they treated Gandhi as a character and not as God or demon. He told Variety, “We’re not trying to deify Gandhi, we see his story as a human story.” Hansal said that since Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi, there has been a change in how real-life stories are told, mentioning films like Oliver Stone’s Elvis, Bohemian Rhapsody, and The Crown.
The filmmaker added, “The biggest learning from all that is, however great the man is, you treat him like a human being first. And look at the person with his flaws… and you build that character. Either you make him into a deity or make him a demon, we’re not doing that.”
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Pratik Gandhi (@pratikgandhiofficial)
Pratik Gandhi mentioned that he had been unknowingly preparing for this series, never imagining he’d have the opportunity to portray Mahatma Gandhi in such depth. He said, “Whatever that we had read and studied in school, was very limited about Gandhi’s life, because mostly we were taught about the Mahatma’s life, not him as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the young boy or man.”
The actor continued, “He’s worshipped like God. Whenever I performed in front of international audiences, the kinds of reactions that I received, actually made me think that this is not a normal character. That kind of responsibility and pressure is all always there, associated with the character’s persona and the larger-than-life life that he had.”
The show Gandhi is set to release on OTT in 2025.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
