Celebrated Bollywood filmmaker Zoya Akhter opens up on why she cast all new and young actors including star kids Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor and Agastya Nanda in her upcoming film ‘The Archies’.
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In a new interview with an Indian publication, filmmaker Zoya Akhter revealed that she was very clear regarding the casting of newcomers in ‘The Archies’, because of the iconic characters that they are.
She explained, “Archies is a very iconic comic. So if we have to take a known actor, I feel somewhere that actor’s image or past image or baggage or whatever you know, would come in there. That was one reason we wanted them to be completely new. So they really had to embody these characters and the audience had to believe that they are these characters.”
“They’re all newcomers, so you don’t know what to expect. So what our casting directors did is they put everyone on tape for everything because one thing is the physicality of it, but the other thing is that you want to get a sense of the person, what the makeup of that person is, their personality, their essence, and does that resonates with a particular character. So we had to put them on tape, to see what are they feeling like, besides the fact that they can act and all that. So it takes time. It was a long process,” Akhtar added.
She continued, “The second thing was we wanted them to be 17 years old looking. So we needed very young actors and they had to be newcomers. It had to be them.”
The ‘Gully Boy’
director even went ahead and blamed the media and publications for promoting nepotism and having all their focus on the three star kids, when they also roped in four other actors. “Netflix and Tiger Baby put seven kids on that poster, and the media only spoke about three, and then turns around and tells us about nepotism. Actually, you’re the one not giving the other four attention. You robbed their moment, that’s just heartbreaking to see. You took away their moment,” she said.
Moreover, upon being asked about her personal favourite of the seven teen characters, Akhtar replied with a smile, “I oscillate between Betty and Veronica.”
The live-action adaptation of the comic book classic, ‘The Archies’ stars debutantes Suhana Khan (daughter of Shahrukh Khan) as Veronica Lodge, Khushi Kapoor (daughter of late actor Sridevi) as Betty Cooper, and Agastya Nanda (grandson of Amitabh Bachchan) as Archie Andrews along with Mihir Ahuja (Jughead Jones), Yuvraj Menda (Dilton Doiley), Aditi ‘Dot’ Saigal (Ethel Muggs), and Vedang Raina (Reggie Mantle).
The title is scheduled to premiere on the streaming giant Netflix on December 7.
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