Juhi Chawla: I had a dream to do one film in every Indian language

Juhi Chawla

Juhi Chawla recently shot for the Gujarati remake of the hit Marathi film Ventilator alongside Jackie Shroff. She shares her experience shooting for the film in Ahemdabad & will be seen playing Boman Irani's part in the original film. Excerpts from the interview...

With Bollywood makers taking fancy to critically acclaimed regional cinema, taking up the Gujarati remake of Marathi film Ventilator a conscious decision? how did it come through?
- So off lately Jackie Shroff & I, we regularly stay in touch via messages & we discuss about organic products, farm products because he is into organic farming & so am I or we discuss anything interesting related to the environment. One of these recent conversations over the messages was, rather he asked me if I'd be interested in doing a Gujarati film, he said to me that the makers of Ventilator were talking about having me in the film, I didn't have an idea so I checked with my manager, she said she'd been in talks with the producer for a while but nothing had materialized so far, it didn't reach any conclusion so she didn't think it necessary to share it with me then. I quickly said to her that I am doing this film because at one point it was my dream, when I was in the thick of films, to do at least one film in every language of India but I ended up doing in Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali & Punjabi & then for the rest I didn't really get something I would like. She pursued it, confirmed it & that's how I became a part of the film Ventilator.

Had you earlier watched the Marathi film Ventilator? How did you like the film?
I had of course heard about Ventilator in Marathi as it had been one of the successful films recently & talked about. I had not seen it because I thought Ventilator meant somebody being serious in the ICU & now after my brother's whole episode with the hospitals, I dread hospitals. So I had not seen the film. Once I was doing it, even though I'm just doing a guest appearance, It's better to see a film so that I know what's it about. Then I saw the film & it's absolutely not I was going to be scared about. It is about the family surrounding the person who is unwell. It's a lot about a typical Indian family which has many members & how they all behave. It's really funny, also emotional & so relatable. You feel this might be actually happening in all Indian families.

We learn you're in a guest appearance, how many days did you shoot for the film?
My day for shooting ended up being exactly the day KKR was playing a match in Kolkata & I had made my plans but I had to change it. They had got the date with little difficulty because my role is with the entire cast of Ventilator, you can't inconvenience so many people so I changed my plans & headed out to Ahemdabad.

How was your experience shooting, what does your role look like?
It was lovely to be on the sets again with Jackie Dada, it is a long scene. In the original film this role has been done by Boman Irani ji & I just did the Gujarati version. The whole day we were shooting. Once we started we did the master shot, we literally ran through the whole scene once & then they did Jackie's shots & then we did my shots non stop, I was shooting till about 9.30 in the night. It was fun. I thought I would be speaking a lot more Gujarati but fortunately - unfortunately my dialogues are in Hindi & spattered with Gujarati in between. In a way it was easy for me also, I could perform.

My role was with the entire cast, it was lovely to meet all of them, they're all well know either on Gujarati stage or in films. It was a great experience to work with them.

Also read: Juhi Chawla refused to kiss Aamir Khan in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak

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