Kemmu casts Zinta against type: Director wanted a badass avatar

Kunal Kemmu reveals his reason for casting Preity Zinta in ‘VIBE'. He shared that he wanted to showcase her in a way she'd never been portrayed before. Notably, this coincided with the period when Zinta was in talks for her comeback project, ‘Batwara 1947’, which also features Sunny Deol and Shabana Azmi.

As Kemmu tells it, he was completely unaware of that film when he offered her a part in his.

Kunal Kemmu's instinct for casting against type

The actor says this instinct to cast against expectation runs through the film; ‘Sparsh Shrivastava’, who plays Bugs, is another example. After watching him in ‘Jamtara - Sabka Number Ayega’ and ‘Laapataa Ladies’, Kemmu was keen to place him in a corporate world quite unlike anything he'd played before.

Kunal Kemmu on Zinta's 'badass avatar'

Casting Zinta gave Kemmu what he saw as an even greater opportunity to upend expectations.

He was clear that he wanted to move her away from the image she's long been known for. In conversation with Variety India, the director said, “I had never seen her do action. We have always seen her as a beautiful girl next door. She has often played the typical bubbly girl. And while I loved that, I thought it would be interesting to see her in a badass avatar.

I wanted her to do action. That was my motivation and pitch to her.”

Instead of relying on a persuasive sales pitch to win Zinta over, Kemmu says he simply let the script and his vision for the character speak for themselves. He was upfront that the character, as written, wouldn't be altered. “I am somebody who will let the script do the talking. I told her my script and my intentions with the character won't change. She understood that,” he shares.

Kunal Kemmu on why Zinta trusted his vision

According to Kemmu, that trust also had roots in the fact that Zinta wasn't unfamiliar with his work. She'd already seen ‘Madgaon Express’, marking his directorial debut, which gave her a fair idea of his approach as a writer-director. The film hits screens on September 18, with Kemmu, Zinta, Shrivastava and debutante Vanshika Dhir in the cast.