Shahid Kapoor and Mrunal Thakur visit Delhi to promote Jersey

Shahid Kapoor and Mrunal Thakur visited Delhi briefly for the promotion of their film Jersey, set to release on April 14. The actors were happy to be in the city, but couldn’t resist complaining about the scorching heat in Delhi. "Jab hum photoshoot ke liye bahar nikle toi yahan loo chal rahi thu, this is Dilli ki garmi,” said Shahid.
The two lead actors shared more about the film and their characters.“This is a very emotional film. When I watched the film (the Telugu version), I felt that the north Indian audience should see this story because the story is the hero of this film. This is a very relatable story. I have never played a father, who is also a cricketer in the film. When you watch the movie, everyone will relate to the characters,” said Shahid.
Talking about her role in the movie, which is a remake of a Telugu film of the same title, Mrunal said, “I play this girl, who is from Hyderabad, she speaks Telugu and lives in Chandigarh with her family. She has learnt that no matter what the circumstances are, she will support her family. She is a very practical girl. I felt very good to play this character as I knew that every girl who will watch this character would find her image in that character.”
The film has been majorly shot in Chandigarh, and Shahid said that he got to learn more about the Punjabi dialect while shooting in the interiors of Punjab. “The film is based in Chandigarh and we wanted to get the cultural milieu right. We wanted it to be very authentic. We worked on the language and dialect. In this film, we went to the interiors of Punjab. You will see the characters speaking in Punjabi - in a very pure style. The world that we have created for this film is very different from the original (Telugu) film. We have used the background of Mohali stadium for some scenes. I learned a lot of Punjabi simply by watching my father (Pankaj Kapur) on the sets. Unki paidaayish Ludhiana ki hai and he speaks very fluent Punjabi. My dad’s Punjabi is very ghaint, meri nahi hai. So I would just watch him speak Punjabi on the sets, sometimes local teams that would speak in Punjabi in Chandigarh, I would ask them to go and speak to dad, and I would just observe. Apart from the language, I also had to train myself in cricket. I played cricket for about 8-9 months then I lost flow during the lockdown. Then I restarted it before we resumed shooting after the lockdown. There were some challenges, but I loved the process,” said Shahid.
On how different this film will be from the Telugu version, the actor added, “When I did Kabir Singh, there were many Hindi dubbed versions of Arjun Reddy online, and people said that many people have watched the film. When we released Kabir Singh, it did so well. I think that there are only limited stories and when you make a new film (or a remake), you have to rediscover it. When we made Kabir Singh we shot in Delhi, the character had that Punjabi attitude, the DU vibe was created and then we showed Mumbai. I think if you make a good film, without copy-pasting it and present it in a fresh way, the audience likes it.”
When asked how she feels about her transition from TV shows to films, Mrunal, who started her acting career in television, replied, “It has been a very interesting journey and I am very proud that I got opportunities and so many filmmakers showed faith in me. I was very hungry to perform a good character. For me, there is no difference between performing for a TV show or a film, they are just two platforms. There are very few filmmakers who want to break stereotypes and give a chance to a TV actor. I feel very good when TV actors come and tell me that ‘Mrunal you are setting an example for us’.”