EXCLUSIVE: Subhash Ghai praises 36 Farmhouse's Amol Parashar, says 'He is an actor with depth and ease'
‘Amol Parashar is an actor with depth and at ease in front of camera,’ says 36 Farmhouse filmmaker Subhash Ghai
Amol Parashar had a revolutionary 2021 as the actor was a part of three diverse and successful projects that pushed him beyond his comfort zone and made his audience connect more to him. Be it the lovable Jay in Feels Like Ishq, Shaheed Bhagat Singh of Sardar Udham or Armaan from Cash, the actor found a connect with his audience in each role. In 2022 he intends to continue that streak and his first project in that journey is Subhash Ghai’s 36 Farmhouse.
The film marks Ghai’s return to films after seven years, but the filmmaker doesn’t see it as one. “There is never a ‘return’. Either it's a stop or you rediscover yourself at a certain point where you like to evolve yourself with higher peaks,” he says, adding that after focusing all his attention to filmmaking for 40 years, he just diverted his attention towards establishing his institution, Whistlingwoods International.
Ghai reveals that he wrote 36 Farmhouse during lockdown, and casting for it was the easiest process for him. “It was easy for me as the writer-producer to cast Sanjay Mishra and Vijay Raaz as proven veteran actors to play the senior roles. But I wanted an apt cast of a younger team too. I didn't want a starry-star but a good actor from any platform or institution,” he shares, and that’s when he met Amol.
The filmmaker was introduced to the young actor by his executive producer Vishal Gandhi. “I knew I am meeting a very simple boy with a lot of depth in his eyes and his voice. He sat quietly, hardly talked but he smiled at every point of the character I narrated to him. And that’s it. He was cast. Though I had never seen his previous work on OTT, I knew I was meeting a good actor in him who could justify the struggle of a driven yet jobless tailor master, who has his family’s burden on him and still can smile,” he insists, adding that once the audience watches the film, they’ll understand what he means. “You’d have to watch him in 36 Farmhouse to believe what I said—he is an actor with depth and at ease in front of camera.”
Amol is a part of this new generation of actors and Ghai believes that this generation do have a lot to offer and so does Amol. “On the set, he was a very unassuming actor, staying within himself. I wondered if he could perform the different layers of the character in different situations of the film but, he did it so coolly. Whenever he was slipping slightly, I alerted him and he would pick up immediately to reach his excellence. He understands even the slightest gesture and reacts accordingly. He had to portray four different equations with four different characters including his father Sanjay Mishra, his boss girl Barkha Singh, an arrogant man in power Vijay Raaz and a kind old lady, Madhuri Bhatia. And he reacted to every character so brilliantly,” he raves*
The cast of 36 Farmhouse comprises of so many veterans and renowned names, but Ghai asserts that even in such company, Amol and Barkha were able to make a mark of their own. “They both were as competent as the veterans. Both of them brought great chemistry between themselves with the layers and distance of being lovers and that's tough to achieve,” he concludes.