Interview | Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu on what’s cooking in ‘Citadel: Honey Bunny’ 

The actors along with Raj Nidimoru discuss jackets, acting (good and bad) and taking Indian streaming to the next level

In the 30th year of Pulp Fiction, where Tim Roth leaned in for a kiss with Amanda Plummer and addressed her as ‘Honey Bunny’, director duo Raj & DK (Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K.) bring us Citadel: Honey Bunny, an Indian spy series set in the movie-mad 90s. Its central gun-slingers do not hold up diners but instead embark on dangerous missions, foot soldiers in a delicate keeping of peace. Fronted by Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, it’s ostensibly a spin-off (and prequel) of the American action-espionage series Citadel, envisioned and backed by the Russo brothers as a dovetailing multi-national franchise, with offshoots in India, Italy and Mexico.

Rest assured, though. The treatment and tone of Honey Bunny is still very Raj & DK, as is the preposterously pulpy plot: Bollywood stuntman Bunny (Varun) enlists aspiring actress Honey (Samantha) in a spy op; years later, as an estranged couple, they must reunite to protect their young daughter Nadia, the character played as a grown-up by Priyanka Chopra Jonas in the mothership series

The Hindu spoke to the team about retaining the ‘Indianness’ of Honey Bunny. Excerpts...

Varun, tell us about your jackets in the show. They seem straight out of Taaqatwar, an action film starring Govinda and Sanjay Dutt and directed by your dad, filmmaker David Dhawan. 

VD: They were specially chosen by Raj & DK and our costume designer Ameira Punvani. They showed me the mood-board of the clothes I was going to wear: leather jackets, denims, high boots, high-wasted pants. I sport a mullet as well in the series. There was a reference of Mel Gibson from Lethal Weapon. There were also Sanjay Dutt references from Taaqatwar and other movies of the era.  I am a big fan of the late 80s and 90s so I was just thrilled to do it.

Samantha, there is a funny scene in the first episode — it’s present in the trailer — where your character is auditioning for a Hindi movie, combining expressions like ‘fear’ and surprise’. Did you have any references in mind for that bit?  

SRP: I was just remembering some of my earlier films, where I was pretty bad (laughs). That bit wasn’t even in the script. These guys (Raj & DK with series developer Sita R Menon) were just messing around with me. They put me through a whole gamut of emotions, including complex ones like sadness, anger and angst. The struggling actress portions are only a small part of Honey’s journey in the series. I was treating it as my off days between all the action-heavy stuff. 

Did the Russo Brothers grant enough freedom to make the series distinctively quirky and Indian? 

Raj Nidimoru: All our career, we have been approached by big studios to make sequels of their popular films. We were never enthusiastic about it because we knew their vision was set. Our strength, we knew, lay in being original. 

So we were equally elated and doubtful when we got this offer. The American way of creating shows is very streamlined: you are given a script and you have to stick to it. But thankfully and surprisingly, that wasn’t the case with Joe and Anthony Russo. Barring basic guidelines and names of institutions — Citadel, Manticore — it was completely open to interpretation. We chose a canvas that’s far away removed from the world of the American version. It’s not as techy and futuristic. The setting also allowed us to create our own agents like Honey and Bunny, who cannot exist in the contemporary narrative. 

There are several single-takes in the series, not just the flashy ‘oners’ in the action set-pieces but even in quieter dramatic moments. 

VD: As a performer, I want the audience to feel what my character is feeling. Sometimes that can only be achieved when actors are given the time and space to really talk, instead of constantly cutting between takes. I have a long scene where I talk to Samantha for the first time about Kay Kay Menon’s character, a spymaster named Baba. I am telling her who he is and what he has done for me. It’s a long, emotional piece with minor intercuts, and it really works dramatically. 

SRP: The toughest ‘oner’ for me was the car sequence where I fend off two enemies. We shot it towards the end of the series. By then I had done most of the fancier, cooler sequences, and I thought it will be child’s play. But it turned out to be really difficult. All three of us had to be in perfect sync with the swerving car. Raj seems to think we did 12 takes but I think it was close to 40. And all this for a 40-second shot!

Streaming has been around in India for a while. However, we are yet to produce that one crossover hit that the entire world is talking about. What will it take? 

VD: It will take for a show to be extremely Indian. Because everything else they have in the West. So we need to be more rooted in our culture, in our terrain. That is what will give a global audience a kick. 

SRP: I really felt that about Shogun, set in feudal Japan. It wasn’t on the largest scale per se but it was so rooted in Japanese culture. We need to offer something similar. One good thing about Raj & DK is that they are not influenced or intimidated by what’s happening elsewhere. 

RN: I feel there have been great shows from India but you have to ‘discover’ them. They are not pushed or marketed enough to become the biggest hits globally. Once that begins to happen, any of our shows will break out.

Published - October 23, 2024 06:08 pm IST