'WE TRIED NOT TO GO OVERBOARD WITH HUMOUR'

SAYS AYUSHMANN KHURRANA, WHO ALONG WITH ANANYA PANDAY, SPEAKS ABOUT DREAM GIRL 2, WORKING IN AN ENSEMBLE AND THE CHALLENGES OF DOING COMEDY

- KARTIK BHARDWAJ

IN a previous interview with this writer, Ayushmann Khurrana said that he can't let go of the quirk factor when it comes to choosing films. Although his recent experiments (An Action Hero, Doctor G, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui) didn't pay off (at least at the box office), the actor has admirably stuck to his guns. With his latest outing Dream Girl 2, the dry spell has been broken. The film has made over ₹50 crore in five days since its release. In comparison, the lifetime collections of his recent releases peaked at around the ₹40 crore mark.

Unwilling to dwell upon his previous commercial failures, Ayushmann speaks to us about the Raaj Shaandilyaa directorial, in which he stars alongside Ananya Panday. The film is the spiritual sequel to the 2019 comedy-of-errors Dream Girl, where the actor played Karamveer Singh, an unemployed youth who puts his androgynous voice to use in order to lure customers at a sex-chat call centre. "I had a girlfriend when I was 15. Sometimes, when I called her place on the landline and somebody else picked up, I had to mimic a woman's voice," shares Ayushmann. He also credited his previous work as a radio jockey for acing a believable falsetto. "I didn't know those prank calls would come in handy here."