Really hope we are able to tell story with due respect: Director Akshay Shere on 'Bhagwat'

New Delhi, Oct 28 (PTI) "Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas" director Akshay Shere believes audiences are drawn to complex characters but the challenge is to make them interesting rather than inspirational figures.

The film, starring Arshad Warsi as a cop hot on the heels of a popular professor who he believes to be the prime suspect in the disappearance of many women, released on ZEE5 and has earned critical acclaim. "Panchayat" star Jitendra Kumar plays the professor in the movie. "The film is based on a real-life incident. In our film, we have tried not to make the story very gory... Characters with grey shades can become too flamboyant. Everybody likes to see that kind of a character. So, that's a big, big responsibility to not make him into an idol or an inspiration. I hope we have achieved that, I hope we were not wrong on that," he told PTI in an interview.

Jitendra, known for his positive regular guy roles in "TVF Pitchers", "Kota Factory" and "Shubh Mangal Jyada Savdhan", took a while to accept the role that took him out of his comfort zone.

"We met through a common friend, our dialogue writer Sumit Arora. After that, I think the script played the part. After he heard the script, he took his time to understand the script. It took about a week. But after that he was very excited about it. He knew we would be able to do it because the character obviously is very different for him. So he must have taken that moment and that time. But after that it was absolutely okay," he said.

The filmmaker, who began his journey as an assistant director under Ram Gopal Varma on films "Shiva" and "Sarkar", said with an experienced actor like Warsi, there was a collaborative environment on the sets.

"Arshad sir, obviously, is very senior so we made sure to have a space where we could have lots of discussions, we used to have a lot of brainstorming. We talked about the characters, their reactions, and our set was very collaborative. We didn't have a hierarchy on set, it was quite democratic," he said.

Asked what he learned from mentor Ram Gopal Varma, Shere said he finds the filmmaker’s approach to storytelling quite interesting.

"It's not about his direction, but the perspective that he picks up from a story that definitely I've learned a lot from him. Direction obviously is a very individualistic space, but with respect to looking at a story or rather how to look at an incident and what to pick from it, all those things I've learned a lot from him," the director said. PTI SMR BK RB RB