Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; June 24, 2020)

It is believed that you can find humour in the most challenging situations, and comedy can often help one tide over a tough phase. On that note, we asked Arshad Warsi, known for his knack for comedy, about the next instalment of the successful Golmaal franchise. “We haven’t really chatted about it, but the team is working on the script with Farhad Samji (writer-turned-director). I know that Rohit Shetty (director) wants to make it, and hopefully, he will. For us, listening to the script is a formality and we do it for fun. It’s super fun to sit together and read a script like that. So, I guess the film will happen, though we don’t know when, where and how yet,” he said.

In the current scenario of Coronavirus, while several filmmakers are keen to go back on set, it’s still uncertain as to when a full-fledged movie shoot will actually begin. Also, most filmmakers are toying with the idea of roping in VFX and allied technology to shoot crowd scenes, create outdoor effects, shoot scenes involving several people in a single frame and romantic scenes. For instance, a multi-starrer like Golmaal is bound to have many members of the cast in one frame.

To this, Arshad said, “I feel, and I could be wrong about this, but this is a time when technology will help us make the films that we want to make. Yes, when you create a crowd using VFX, you lose out on the beauty of realism, which is sad. For romantic scenes, you need that personal touch. In due course, things will be fine. With a strong immune system, I guess you can eventually work with multiple people in a frame. If my co-star is healthy, I don’t mind doing a romantic scene. And, if we have all been medically cleared, I don’t mind doing a scene with multiple people in it.”