Gehraiyaan Team Talks About Filming Intimate Scenes And Playing "Raw" Characters

Gehraiyaan trailer release was held virtually on January 20. The film is scheduled to release on OTT on February 11 this year. The last glimpse we had of the film was its minute-long teaser set to its title track, which had viewers hooked.

The film is directed and co-produced by Shakun Batra, who has previously made films like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu and Kapoor&Sons. Deepika Padukone and Ananya Panday star in pivotal roles, alongside Siddhant Chaturvedi and Dhairya Karwa.

The trailer opens with Padukone's character Alisha saying, "I don't like it at home" and then a series of snippets open up on grey areas of modern relationships. We are told that Siddharth's character is engaged with Panday's character Tia, who is a cousin of Alisha (Padukone). Over a getaway, Zain and Alisha fall for each other and get into a physical relationship with reluctance. The"> trailer scratches the surface of what the film is about and shows the complexities between each character. It ends with Alisha asking, "Are we just messed up people?"

Gehraiyaan is a take on modern-day relationships and the complexities that are an inevitable part of them. The film made headlines not just for its aesthetics and actors, but also for giving credits to its intimacy coordinator, Dar Gai, making it the first Bollywood film to do so.

"I was happy to be part of a film like this. We were all in Goa for two months. Every moment in this film was magical and we did not just change as an actor but as a person too," Panday said during the launch of the trailer.

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Padukone, on the other hand, revealed she was in London shooting for 83 when Batra flew down and gave her a narration for the film. "It did not feel like a director narrating but a friend coming over. This script has evolved a lot. He had trusted me and I had faith in him. I never doubted or second-guessed his sensibilities,"she said.

"You have never seen me play a character like this or any Indian actor. India has not seen a film like this. This is really first. Batra has really being the observer and watching different kinds of people and relationships without judgement. Like Siddhant said that there is no reference point, so one has to really dig deep, " Padukone added during the launch.

How Gehraiyaan's team handled the intimate scenes

An intimacy coordinator is someone on the film set who takes care of intimate scenes between actors and ensures their comfort. The role became highlighted on most sets after the increase in the #MeToo movement in the film industry. While an intimacy coordinator has been part of Hollywood film shoot culture, it is fairly new in India.

"Intimacy today is a very specialised space and you have to create an environment where actors can feel comfortable where you prep the way you do for the story or an action sequence. In America and the west, intimacy coordination has become a process and I really thought that the start point of this film from a new beginning would be to accept things happening in other countries too," Batra said, adding that the outlook of the intimacy coordinator was important for the story.

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"Dar has contributed a lot to my picture and so it was important that we give her the same respect as we give to all out hods," said Batra on crediting the intimacy director during the trailer launch.

Further speaking on the theme of Gehraiyaan, Batra added, "...this one, it is not infidelity under the garb of finding the one or finding the true love. We are just trying to understand or explore relationships outside of the conventional boundaries."

Talking about her character Alisha, Padukone said she is a lot more raw and real than some of the characters. The actor said she had to dig deep and visit places in her own life, which was not nice. For her, it was "raw, naked and vulnerable."