Swwapnil Joshi on Vaalvi: We were warned to not be funny on-screen

In a media interview, Swwapnil Joshi who was recently seen in Marathi film Vaalvi directed by Paresh Mokashi spoke about the nuances that need to be taken into account when the character is multi-layered and how challenging it was for him to play his character.

“The film in the first half dwells into two zones, one is the surreal zone, and the other is the reality zone. The first half dwells into both these universes simultaneously. We had to establish the imaginary zone and the real zone of what is happening in the imagination of the protagonist and what is happening in the reality of his life too. We had to shoot those sequences and the exact same shots only through our body language and little variations without underlying anything. We had to keep the audience spoon fed about what is imagination and what is reality so that the difference would be starkly clear to them yet not making it obvious and keeping them in that surreal middle zone,” Joshi said.

“When we shot those sequences, it wasn’t shot in a linear fashion. When you watch the film, you will watch it in a linear fashion, so you know what happens next and have the kind of concurrency of what is happening. When we were shooting it, the breakdown of the sequences was location wise. It was very difficult to remember the chronology of events, what I had done in that shot, what hand gestures I had used, how many buttons I had put on the shirt, how many of them were closed/open. Will there be three buttons open in the imagination or two buttons in reality. Every little thing was discussed in detail and worked upon. That was the most challenging part as an actor is to remember those little nuisances, not in the same concurrency or linearity of it and yet give justice to them, which was amazing yet challenging,” the actor added.

“Another challenging aspect was the second half of the film which is extremely funny. I wouldn’t call it a comedy because none of the characters are doing comedy, but whatever is happening on the screen is extremely funny. Our job was not to create a punch or not to do comedy per say and that was the clear instruction of Paresh and team that we don’t have to do comedy, we must be dead serious. It should come across that we are extremely tired, perplexed, curious, anxious, and scared of what is happening. Amidst all that was happening, the outcome must be funny. I genuinely thought doing that and getting that right was very difficult, pathbreaking and heartwarming. Now when you see the reaction of the audiences it just swells your heart with pride that you were able to do that," Joshi concluded

Vaalvi also stars Namrata Awate Sambherao, Subodh Bhave and Anita Date Kelkar. The film released in theatres on January 13. The film will be available for streaming on Zee5 from February 24.