The makers of Kalki 2898 AD hosted a pre-release event in Mumbai which was graced by the star cast: Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Kamal Haasan, and Amitabh Bachchan.
Bachchan, who will be seen as Ashwatthama, recalled his first interaction with Nag Ashwin, the director of the film. The screen legend said when Ashwin came and explained the idea to him, the former thought, “What the hell is Nag drinking?” He added, “It was absolutely something outrageous. It’s just unbelievable to have somebody conceive a project that is so futuristic.”
“During the making of the film, we realised that no matter what he (the director) thought of, he got all the material, all the effects, and every kind of visual or vision that he had and that really has been an amazing experience for me. To be just a part of it has been an experience I’ll never forget,” added Bachchan.
Kamal Haasan, who plays an antagonist, said he always wanted to play a bad man because he gets to do all the good things. “I thought I was going to play the bad man so it’s going to be fun. But then Nag Ashwin wanted it to be different. I’m almost like a sage in the film with a bad idea. We had a lot to talk about the look, and also not look like something else that I had done already or somebody else had done already.” The 69-year-old actor said he travelled with the team to Los Angeles to get the right look for his character.
Prabhas expressed his gratitude and said that it feels like a dream to work with such actors on screen. “The first time I met Amitabh sir and touched his feet, he said, ‘Don’t do it, and if you do it, then I will also do it’.” Prabhas praised Bachchan, recalling how his uncles emulated the actor’s hairstyle. The Baahubali actor added that he always wanted to work with Deepika. “She attained stardom across the globe. Deepika is a gorgeous, beautiful, and a great actress,” he said.
Deepika Padukone plays a pregnant woman in the film, and at the event, Rana Dagubatt jokingly asked if she was still in her character. To this, she jokingly said, “The movie went on for about three years. So I was like, why not? Just three months more.”
Further, the mommy-to-be was also talking about her experience in Kalki 2898 AD. She said, “It was an incredible experience, a great learning experience. It was a completely new world and I think we went through different phases, discovering what the film was about. It was an incredible experience, both at a personal and professional level.”
Kalki 2898 AD is slated to release on June 27, 2024.
(The article is published under a mutual content partnership arrangement between The Free Press Journal and Connected to India)