(From left) Actors Suhail Nayyar, Kritika Kamra, Anup Soni, Sunny Hinduja, and Pratik Gandhi at the special chat moderated by mid-day’s Priyanka Sharma, at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai. Pics/Kirti Surve Parade

To celebrate India’s 79th Independence Day on Friday, mid-day and Netflix India brought a slice of the country’s past to St Xavier’s College in Mumbai. The auditorium was packed with eager students, their eyes glued to the stage, where the cast of Saare Jahan Se Accha — a spy thriller inspired by real-life events of the 1970s — sat down for a chat with mid-day.

The show — starring Pratik Gandhi, Sunny Hinduja, Kritika Kamra, Anup Soni, and Suhail Nayyar — dropped online only a day before Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR’s ambitious spy offering War 2 opened in cinemas.

Pointing out that the series and the YRF spy films hail from dramatically different worlds, we posed a hypothetical scenario to Gandhi: What would Vishnu Shankar, his intelligence officer character in the show, chat about with Roshan’s Kabir Dhaliwal, Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, and Salman Khan’s Tiger if they crossed paths?

“I don’t think I’ll recruit them ever. I’ll ask them to join the entertainment industry,” he quipped, eliciting uproarious laughter from the audience.

Gandhi had his reason for the choice. When we mentioned that the treatment of spies and their lives in Saare Jahan Se Accha is gritty and real, a marked difference from that in films, the actor elaborated, “War 2 and all those films talk about wars. The heroes are fighting the wars, whereas real-life spies’ job is to avoid wars.”

The actor pointed out another difference — the agents on the big screen look too dashing for their own good. “These agents are not supposed to look like heroes, because then they will [draw] attention. They should be able to blend in. If they can do any kind of stunts, I guess the world will know that this guy is up to something,” he said.

Given the occasion, we asked the actors what freedom means to them. Kamra said, “Freedom is the ability to dissent. You are truly free with someone, or as a citizen, if you can speak your mind fearlessly.”

Soni added, “If we can hug each other, say what we want, eat whatever we want, that’s freedom.”

When Netflix India unveiled its 2025 slate in February, one of the shows that caught attention was Pratik Gandhi's Saare Jahan Se Accha. Set in the 1970s, the spy thriller — which also stars Tillotama Shome, Rajat Kapoor, and Sunny Hinduja — revolves around an Indian undercover agent who is sent to Pakistan to stop it from becoming a nuclear force. Sources indicate that with a chunk of the series set in Pakistan, director Sumit Purohit and his team had to recreate parts of the country in India.

A source said, “More than half the story is set in the neighbouring country. As the unit couldn’t travel to Pakistan, massive sets reflecting Karachi were made in Mumbai and Chandigarh. One was built at the Golden Tobacco Factory in Vile Parle, Mumbai, and a Karachi marketplace was recreated at a local market in Chandigarh.”

Sejal Shah and Bhavesh Mandalia, who recently backed Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Costao, serve as the series’ producers and showrunners. “It is one of Netflix India’s biggest series, with a budget of around Rs 100 crore,” added the source.

Saare Jahan Se Accha comes as the latest offering from Gandhi, who is on an upward streak with Madgaon Express (2024), Do Aur Do Pyaar (2024), and Dhoom Dhaam earlier this year. But unlike these projects, the spy thriller will see him step into a grey role — something that he excels in, if his breakthrough show Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020) was any indication.

“The makers needed someone who could give a strong performance, and Pratik fit the bill. He is playing a complex character — under the cover of being a diplomat, he is an R&AW [Research and Analysis Wing] agent who stops Pakistan’s nuclear program. The role has been inspired by different real-life Indian spies. The show depicts the period when late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was at the helm, and R N Kao was heading R&AW, as India and Pakistan were trying to edge out one another in the nuclear arms race.”

Initially, the six-episode series was titled For Your Eyes Only. What brought on the rechristening? The source added that it was a mutual decision between the makers and the streaming giant. “All the stakeholders felt Saare Jahan Se Accha was a better fit as it’s desi and reflects the show’s patriotic theme.”

He might have got recognition with the web show The Family Man (TFM) but actor Sharib Hashmi has a deep-rooted passion for theatre. He recently announced that he will be collaborating with TFM co-star Sunny Hinduja for a play. Keeping most of the details under wrap as they are working out the finer details, Hashmi reveals that it will be a two-man play and that both of them will be involved in all aspects of the play.

The 48-year-old is quite “excited and nervous” to be returning to theatre. He adds, “Actors move from theatre to films, but I am working in reverse. I don’t have any theatre training but Gopal (Dutt; co-star Filmistaan; 2012) used to tell me, ‘Tu theatre ka banda hai’. When he was in a play, he gave me two roles in it. There is a sense of freedom in theatre as it is an actor’s medium; there is a different satisfaction. Yet cinema is my first love,” he quips.

Recognised as a ‘character actor’, ask if the label bothers him and he replies, “If I’m happy with my work, then I don’t care about labels. These aren’t terms created by the industry, it’s the laymen who use it. When I meet someone and they tell me, ‘Aapne bahut acha kaam kiya tha us film mein jisme aap side mein the’. I don’t feel bad. The genuineness of their love is enough. It was my most difficult and best decision to leave my job and pursue acting. I struggled a lot, but it all paid off eventually.”

The Tarla (2023) and Asur actor admits that being a supporting actor has brought a bit of judgement against him in public eye. He recalls, “I have faced tough times. After Filmistaan, when I was having a dull phase in career, main screenings pe jaata tha aur log poochte bhi nahi the mujhe. Main aise hi guzar jata tha aur koi tasveerein nahi kheechi jati thi.”

Yet, he doesn’t get bogged down by them. “I don’t take them to heart because nothing remains constant.”

After 'Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story' (2020) and 'The Great Indian Murder', Pratik Gandhi has zeroed in on his third web series. Next month, the actor will begin filming 'For Your Eyes Only'. One hears that the Netflix show—produced by Sejal Shah and Bhavesh Mandalia, the creators of 'Serious Men' (2020) and 'Decoupled' (2021)—will be an espionage thriller set in the ’70s, with Gandhi portraying an R&AW agent.

Mounted on a grand scale, the story of 'For Your Eyes Only' travels across India and all the way to Budapest as the protagonist goes undercover to find and neutralise security threats to the country. A unit member informs, “Backed by Sejal and Bhavesh’s production house, The Bombay Fables Motion Pictures, the project will roll on October 1. An elaborate set is being put up in Mumbai, which will be the venue for the first schedule. After that, the team will move to Delhi, Rajasthan and Visakhapatnam, before heading to Budapest. It will be a start-to-finish schedule of over 40 days.”

The series also stars Rajat Kapoor, Tillotama Shome, Sunny Hinduja, and Kritika Kamra. In keeping with the style of the ’70s, Gandhi will sport a different look. “The designer and make-up teams have already created the looks of the primary characters, including that of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and R N Kao, the first chief of India’s external intelligence agency. While many films have depicted spies as suave and stylish, this story remains authentic, depicting Pratik’s character and other R&AW agents as everyday men whose job requires them to blend into the crowd. The subject has been researched for over a year. The creators including Gaurav Shukla and director Sumit Purohit want it to be authentic and gritty. Important real-life events of that decade will be depicted.”

The source adds that 'For Your Eyes Only' will be one of the biggest drama series sanctioned by Netflix India, besides Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi. “A foreign DoP has been hired. The budget too is steep as sets resembling certain cities of Pakistan will be built for crucial sequences. The title is derived from the fact that when the intelligence agencies send confidential documents to the prime minister, they are always put in an envelope with the words ‘For Your Eyes Only’ written on them.”