Anil Kapoor talks about the Hindi adaptation of The Night Manager, upcoming film work and international project selection

When Anil Kapoor was offered a lead role in the Hindi adaptation of British drama series The night managerHis first thought was how to apply what he learned from the Indian version of American crime drama 24.

Kapoor plays the role of an international arms dealer played by Hugh Laurie in the original English-language series based on the novel by John le Carre, while Aditya Roy Kapur is cast as a soldier turned hotel night manager who infiltrates his circle, played by Tom Hiddleston in the original show.

After being approached to play the role by Gaurav Banerjee, chief content officer of Disney+ Hotstar, he started watching the English series, which was broadcast by BBC and AMC in 2016 and streamed by Amazon Prime Video in India. “I was impressed by the original, but we had some very strong writers and talent attached to the remake early on, so we thought we could do it,” says Kapoor in an in-depth interview. with Deadline. .

“I wanted to contribute everything I had learned and forgotten 24 in India,” he continues. “Of course we knew that we had to do it according to Indian feelings and the socio-political situation here. I would be an arms dealer, but what was the conflict and who am I selling arms to? I read books and heard about people like [Saudi arms dealer] Adnan Khashoggi, but there is no real gun shop to lean on.

When he saw the work of showrunner Sandeep Modi and his writing team, he was sure it would live up to the original. The Ink Factory, which produced the first edit, is partnering with Banijay Asia to produce the Hindi version, which will stream on Disney+ Hotstar on February 17. The cast also includes Sobhita Dhulipala, Tillotama Shome, Saswata Chatterjee and Ravi Behl.

Kapoor was one of the first actors and producers in the Hindi film industry, working for film and television as well as domestic and international projects. A few years after his role in Danny Boyles Slumdog Millionaire (2008) he co-starred with Kiefer Sutherland in the Fox series 24before producing and starring in the Hindi remake, which ran for two seasons.

He says adapt 24 because the Indian market has also made him realize that too much change can backfire. “I asked the writers The night manager to preserve the soul of the original. When we tried to change too much 24, we started to fail. Some things need to be overwritten, but that doesn’t work if you just want to make changes or avoid comparisons. So we stayed very true to the original show.

Also internationally known for his leading role Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Kapoor was offered a role in a major international television series around the same time The night manager, but decided to turn it down to focus on the Hindi show. He will also appear in an episode of Jeremy Renner’s upcoming Disney+ show The nerves of the runners. But says he is very picky about his international work.

“I don’t want to spread it too thin. I had this window after that slum dogwhile I was taking pictures 24, when I was running around the city meeting everyone and saying if you can cast Chinese actors, why not cast Indian actors? I told them there are better actors than me!

“But now that I’m in LA, I don’t go out and meet hundreds of people. For me, the most important thing is that I know I work with good people. I don’t have the knowledge or instinct to know what’s really great on paper, so I make decisions based on the people involved. And until now, fortunately, I still have a good relationship with all the people I’ve worked with and I know I can trust them.”

Kapoor is also very busy in Mumbai. He continues to work on feature films despite the tremendous increase in Indian web series production and last year starred in Dharma Productions. Krug Jugg Jeeyoone of the first films to hit theaters after reopening and is currently in production for two feature films: Sandeep Reddy’s crime drama Vanga animalalso with Ranbir Kapoor and action thriller fighterdirected by Siddharth Anand (Pathan) and with Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone.

He is also known for taking risks on smaller projects with interesting talent, most recently in two films that debuted on Netflix – Neo-Westerns tarwhich he produced with his son Harshvardhan Kapoor through his AKFC network, and AK against AK, a black comedy with a movie-within-a-movie story directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and starring Anurag Kashyap. “I said let’s just do it for Netflix, so we’re brave enough to do it the way we want to do it instead of worrying about day one box office returns,” he says.

AKFC Network has also produced cricket-themed web series selection day for Netflix and a series of female-focused films produced by this daughter, Rhea Kapoor, including two upcoming films – thank you for comingwith Bhumi Pednekar and Shehnaaz Gill and The crewwith Kareena Kapoor, Tabu and Kriti Sanon.

Kapoor says he is happy to see PathanHowever, the recent success of Yash Raj Films (Yash Raj Films’ Shah Rukh Khan starrer just became the biggest Hindi film of all time) has not been diminished by the painful downturn in the Hindi film industry in recent years. Raised in a showbiz family – his father worked for Bollywood big screen Shammi Kapoor – he has been hearing about the ups and downs of the Hindi film industry for decades.

“Those kind of rough places come and go. Sometimes Hindi films do well, sometimes it’s southern films or Bengali films that get all the attention. The only difference is that we didn’t have social media back then.”

His own career began in the late 80s and early 90s with groundbreaking films such as Mr. India, Parinda And lamb, some of which have become classics, but were not always huge box office hits at the time of their release. He has also worked with major South Indian filmmakers, including Mani Ratnam, in films set in Kannada Pallavi Anu Pallavi at the beginning of his career.

One ongoing trend he has noticed over the decades is the herd mentality of the film industry.

“When certain films do well, people suddenly have the confidence to put more money into them, so let’s hope that’s where we are now. When there is more confidence, there is more money, and then we have the opportunity to make bigger and more technically ambitious films.”