Abhay Deol reveals how he improvised a dialogue-free scene in Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Dev. D’: 'Came over to me and then hugged me'

Abhay Deol revisited memories from ‘Dev. D’ on Friday morning, sharing a fascinating behind-the-scenes moment from the critically acclaimed film. The actor revealed that he improvised a scene by spontaneously adding dialogues where none were originally written, a move that eventually impressed director Anurag Kashyap.The actor took to his social media handle to share a clip from ‘Dev D’, featuring his scene with Rasika, portrayed by Parakh Madan. He noted that no dialogues had initially been written for his character in that moment.Sharing the video, Abhay wrote, “She said she was “from Delhi”, so I said that “I’m from here.” Dev D is not a very verbose film by design. So it was of no surprise that I had no dialogue in this scene. The script stared blankly at me, while the Rasika character spoke to Dev. So I let my character take over me, and allowed the words to flow. The director yelled cut. He came over to me and then hugged me. “How did you incorporate every element of the room into the scene and make it look so casual?” he said.”Deol further wrote, “External validation received, and I felt good about myself. One take and we were done with the scene. Dev had found his voice, and as time went on, I got lost in it.”Speaking about ‘Dev.D’, the film is a modern-day adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1917 Bengali novel ‘Devdas’. It also features Mahie Gill and Kalki Koechlin and was released in February 2009. Set in contemporary Punjab and Delhi, the story follows Devendra Singh “Dev” Dhillon, a privileged young man who spirals into alcohol and drug addiction after a failed relationship with his childhood love, Parminder “Paro” Kaur. Along the way, he forms an unexpected bond with Chanda, an escort dealing with her own emotional struggles.