Anubhav Sinha said- Whichever actor refuses to work with me, I sit on his/her chest

When resources are more, fear is also more

Talking about the challenge of casting and directing legends like Naseeruddin and Pankaj Kapoor together, Anubhav Sinha says, ‘I try my best to get the cast of my choice. If someone refuses me, I sit on his/her chest to convince him/her. Like Kumud Mishra was not ready for ‘Mulk’, but I convinced him/her. Similarly, for this series, Naseeruddin Bhai (Naseeruddin Shah) agreed immediately but it took time to convince Pankaj Kapoor. he/she was not ready to do the series. I told him/her to listen to the role, then he/she said that he/she would read the entire script and he/she said yes after reading the entire script. As far as directing them is concerned, all of them are such good actors that once you tell them the scene, they do it and I just have to shoot it well. So there was no such challenge. The only challenge is that when you have so much talent, there is pressure to do justice to them. When there are more resources, you always have this fear that I should make the best use of them.’

Understand the incident closely through research

The Kandahar plane hijack is still remembered as a question mark in Indian political history. Anubhav tells about his/her memories related to this, ‘I was progressing in my career then. I started getting work, so I was more focused on that, but yes, since a big incident had happened, I was still interested in what happened? Were people released or not? But when I started researching for the series, I came to know why it took seven-eight days? What all happened in that? It sounds easy, but here it was a question of lives. The demands of the hijackers started with 35 people, so much money, we want this, we want that. In the end, we released three people (terrorists), for which we can be criticized, which happened, but 180-190 of our people were freed and brought back, which was an unprecedented rescue mission in itself.’

Releasing on Netflix on August 29

‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ has been released on the OTT platform Netflix on 29 August.