Actor Naveen Kaushik, who plays Donga, one of Rahman Dakait’s henchmen, spoke about his experience working on the Aditya Dhar directorial Dhurandhar. The film has drawn attention both for its box office success and for the way it captures scenes set in Pakistan. A violent scene, featuring Arjun Rampal’s Major Iqbal torturing an Indian spy with fishhooks all over his body, generated buzz online.
Kaushik recalled his reaction to the violent sequences, especially the torture scene. He told Just Too Filmy, “I mean, I read the script, but I wasn’t there for the entire shoot. But when you finally see what they have created — like the 26/11 scene or when Arjun Rampal’s character tells Hamza that they know there is a spy within them – that scene is spine-chilling. The torture scene that comes after that – I mean, I just thought, ‘Yeh allow ho gaya’ (This got allowed)? That scene is insane.”
Seeing the final product, Kaushik was surprised by what made it to the screen. The depiction of violence and the level of realism in these scenes left a significant impression on him. According to Kaushik, the creative decisions and execution by the team brought an authenticity to the narrative that he found both shocking and captivating.
Speaking further about the project, Kaushik questioned whether the director and his team could achieve the vision they had set out with. He said, “Aditya narrated most of the film to me, and I felt that this is a good story, but will they be able to pull it off? When we were shooting in Bangkok, they had recreated Lyari there. 8 blocks had been transformed into Pakistan, with all the shops, houses, and alleys. That’s when I realised that the scale of the film is huge.”
The actor, who is seen close to Danish Pandor’s Uzair Baloch and Ranveer’s Hamza in the film, recounted how the production team transformed a section of Bangkok to resemble Lyari, a locality in Pakistan. The transformation included detailed replication of buildings, streets, and everyday surroundings. Observing these efforts, the actor noted the immense scale and level of detail in the film’s production design.
He added, “I mean, they were using actual houses that people could stay in. They told me that the crew stays in those houses when they aren’t shooting. People were living on the set, and they could convert anything that they wanted for the film. For 40 days it was like an actual township. There was a restaurant and separate houses dedicated to the costume, makeup and action teams. That’s when I was like, ‘Iss film ka scale alag hai’ (The scale of this film is something different).”
Kaushik described the set as a functioning township during the shoot, with cast and crew living on location, and various facilities dedicated to costume, makeup, and action departments. He pointed out that this approach allowed the team to fully immerse themselves in the environment necessary for the story, reinforcing his impression of the film’s ambitious scope.
The film, boasting an ensemble cast including Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan, Sara Arjun, Sanjay Dutt, and Naveen Kaushik himself, has been widely discussed due to its intense visuals and ambitious set design.
Dhurandhar merges intense storytelling with large-scale production values. The attention to detail in recreating settings, and the actors’ experiences on set, have contributed to the ongoing conversation around the film’s execution and impact.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.indiatoday.in ’
