Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; December 29, 2018)

His menacing act in Mirzapur behind him, Pankaj Tripathi has returned to his dancing boots. After having revealed to mid-day that he was taking inspiration from Govinda for his first dance number in the Shakeela biopic, Tripathi will be seen at the fore of an item song in Satish Kaushik’s Kaagaz.

Pointing out that few in the industry are aware of his love for dance, the actor says, “I can easily catch the rhythm of a song, and don’t take time to learn the choreography. I didn’t need to rehearse too much for this song since it has one hook step. The rest is freestyle.”

Kaushik tells mid-day of his currently untitled number, also featuring Sandeepa Dhar, “When Pankaj told me he would dance at events in his village, and when he was in theatre, I decided to explore this side. He has an inherent rhythm, and brought the humour that the track required, because of his comic timing.”

Talking about his song, choreographed by Ahmed Khan and composed by Pravesh Mallick and Asim Abbasi, he says, “Item songs normally have women at the forefront. We revisited that.”