Hussain Dalal, the Hindi actor-writer, says token best friend characters that used to be common in commercial Hindi cinema, are not being written anymore.
“Now, we write characters that we need in a script,” he adds, in a conversation with Silverscreen India ahead of the release of the film Toofaan.
Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and starring Farhan Akhtar, the sports drama is all set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on Friday.
Dalal, who was a co-writer of Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, plays the role of Akhtar’s best friend in Toofaan. But, Dalal says, he isn’t portrayed as the main character’s friend. Instead, both are shown as each other’s friends.
The actor-writer will be seen playing the character of Munna in the film, which also stars Paresh Rawal and Mrunal Thakur.
“Munna and Ajju (Akhtar) have grown up together and embarked on several adventures together. There comes a point in their lives when they choose sport over crime even though the latter is what fed their bellies all the while,” says Dalal. “Basically, what we have tried to show through the film is, if done with love, anything can be achieved.”
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On the change in characterisation of second leads over time, he says, “There was a time when best friend characters were written in a script just to say one-liners like, ‘You have gone crazy, you are in love.’ And after four minutes of being on screen, they would be married off and sent to Japan. I have avoided scripts with such characters for the past ten years. Fortunately, we don’t write those anymore. Films have evolved. We write characters that have their own background and story.”
“When respectable roles are written, actors can have fun playing those parts,” he adds
Talking about the OTT release of Toofaan, Hussain says “it has always been the future.”
However, he adds, it is not a competition between theatres and OTTs. “It is everybody’s industry together. Currently, due to the pandemic, theatres are not getting enough content. But, once it becomes normal again, films will be releasing in theatres as well.”