"I have always had a blast at the movies, but the last three years have been satiating,” starts off Abhishek Bachchan, who is gearing up for the release of his next film, The Big Bull on Disney+ Hotstar, next week. Admitting that his phase post-Manmarziyaan has been rewarding, he says, “Bob Biswas [the prequel to 2012’s Kahaani] and [Dinesh Vijan’s] Dasvi are reminders that people haven’t pigeonholed me into an image. The fact that writers and directors found me worthy enough to play Bob Biswas itself is fantastic. Dia [Annapurna Ghosh, director] and Sujoy [Ghosh, writer-producer] showed immense faith in me.” 

Sujoy, Shah Rukh Khan (co-producer), and Netflix will lock on a release date once edits are done, informs Bachchan. “[Shooting for] the film was fun because I could work in Kolkata and put on weight with abandon. The fact that I looked like Bob helped in pulling off the complex character.”

While Bob Biswas was made as a direct-to-OTT original, we ask him if forgoing a theatrical release of The Big Bull bothered him. Insisting that the film was originally planned for the theatres and that producer Ajay Devgn changed his mind, he says, “The pandemic changed the circumstances. Ajay told me during the lockdown that there was an uncertainty about how the pandemic will play out. He had the foresight of saying everything about it is for the big screen. It is meant as a spectacle but let us make sure we reach the audience. It’s a big-screen experience and I hope the energy translates on the small screen.”