On July 28, Anil Kapoor's son Harshvardhan who makes his acting debut in October in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's love story, Mirzya, kick-started his second film, Vikramaditya Motwane's vigilante drama, Bhavesh Joshi. Mirror has learnt that Harsh who went through extensive prep for his debut film, practicing riding and archery for almost two-and-a-half years till horses were his life and he was shooting better than the mountain archers on the sets in Ladakh, has gone one step further with this one. Taking a cue from method actors, Harsh has moved out of his plush family bungalow in Juhu and into a modest two-bedroom apartment in Versova, with his co-star Priyanshu Painyuli, to live the “character“, literally.

Interestingly, in an interview to Mirror (July 9), Harsh had revealed that he had auditioned for Bhavesh Joshi earlier, but he was too young then and the role had gone to Imran Khan.

Vikramaditya, who had directed Udaan and Lootera earlier, announced the film in 2014 but soon after Imran opted out, the project was in a limbo for a while as other actors, among them reportedly Ranveer Singh, were considered. Eventually, Sidharth Malhotra stepped in, but then with a change of government at the Centre, the writer-director decided to put the film on the back-burner as the subject was no longer relevant.

On August 24, 2015, Mirror reported that Vikram who knows Harsh well was planning to revive his ambitious film with him. He confirmed the same to Mirror more recently and the film rolled on July 28 with his 25-year-old hero posting four pictures of his director from the sets showing off a Tee with “Mera Bhavesh Aayegaa“, “Postponed twice“, “3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 6 days later...“ and finally “Action“ emblazoned on it.

In the earlier interview, Harsh admitted that he would rather be over-prepped than under-prepped, and right now was having a heart attack because Bhavesh Joshi was to roll soon. “With Mehra, we had the script a year in advance, rehearsed at his office and in Rajasthan before the shoot. Anurag Kashyap only started on Bhavesh Joshi's script after Ramam Raghav 2.0. If I'm terrible I'll blame Vikram who keeps saying 'Trust me, trust me'. There's a lot of action which we have been working on and will look cool, but we'll start with the not so dramatic scenes,“ he informed.

Having grown up on a diet of cinema, from Hollywood blockbusters like The Godfather and The Silence Of the Lambs which he'd seen by 13 to the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Gael Garcia Bernal, Harsh wants to be a part of the vision of master storytellers. “Bhavesh Joshi is a leap forward from Mehra's Mirzya, more urban and conversational. The script's changed from 2013 when the Congress ruled. I'm not politically inclined and it's fiction, but having lived in Mumbai for 25 years, I can say some of the stuff is relevant to the city,“ maintained the self-confessed Anurag Kashyap fan.