'Lock'd IN' actor Karan Mally reveals how Shah Rukh Khan was cast in 'Dear Zindagi'

Karan Mally with wife Maanavi Bedi, Picture Courtesy: PR

Karan Mally is a well-known casting director who's behind giant names like Toofan, Gully Boy, and Dear Zindagi. He has now forayed into acting too and a web series featuring him in lead role just dropped on YouTube last week, titled Lock'd In. As the name suggests, it's the story of a couple that attempts to stay under a roof and let their relationship undergo changes amid the nationwide lockdown.

In an exclusive interview with mid-day digital, Mally spoke about his experience of acting, to recreate the atmospheric mood of isolation, and what goes behind casting for films.

Talking about his experience first, he said, "It was a great experience, especially because we shot it at home. It was during the time when no other work was happening. So we were creating work for ourselves."

When asked about what he finds more challenging between acting and casting, he quipped, "Acting now, because it has been 9-10 years of casting, I have a lot of experience when it comes to that, so it gets easier but it's still challenging because each film is different. There are roles when you're like, ‘How am I going to find this person?' Eventually, everything falls into place. With acting, I have comparatively lesser experience, but casting has helped me in acting as well because I've read a lot of scripts, I've seen a lot of actors."

As stated above, he has been one of the minds behind the casting of films like Dear Zindagi, Toofan, and Gully Boy. He elaborated on the process and said, "It's different for every film. We get a film, we read the script and we understand what the world is, we make our own ideas depending upon what we think of it. We meet the director, we understand what his brief is and then we start ideating."

Shah Rukh Khan in Dear Zindagi was quite an interesting choice, how did he decide on his name? He revealed, "I can promise you that we didn't cast Shah Rukh Khan or Alia Bhatt (Smiles). That's a decision that say Karan Johar or Gauri Shinde, you know, the directors and producers cast stars. It would be a lie if I say we've cast stars. We still live in a star-driven industry. More often than not, the star is already on board and then the movie gets greenlit and then everything else starts."

The globe is still dealing with restrictions so does he think the virus is here to stay. He said, "I think it is for sometime, I don't see it going away. It was a bad time for a lot of people, it was different for everybody, everyone had their own experience. Some people found family time, some people spent time with their spouses, some people spent time with their pets, some with their friends, some alone, and some with their girlfriends. In our case, we were stuck in our show. The couple gets stuck and they haven't been dating for that long. And suddenly they get stuck and start exploring their relationship faster."

When asked about his upcoming plans in casting and acting, this is what he revealed, "With casting, we have a few movies lined-up. We have a show coming up called Fallen with Amazon, I think it has already been announced. Acting wise, after this show comes out, I'll start figuring out what to do next. The next thing can't be smaller, it can't be less important, it has to be big."

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