Actor Paresh Pahuja, who recently made his debut in Telugu cinema with Operation Valentine, gets candid with The Pioneer, sharing his excitement of being a part of the film, his preps, and more.
Tejal Sinha
Making a mark for himself on screen, Paresh Pahuja has proven his adroitness yet again with his recent stint in Operation Valentine. After some remarkable performances with his previous projects like Kadak Singh, Jogi, and Doctor G, to name a few in Bollywood, here’s the talented actor who has made his debut with the Varun Tej and Manushi Chillar starrer in Telugu this time.
“For me, first of all, it’s always about the script, even more than my character,” begins the actor in an exclusive chat with The Pioneer. He’s one of those who trusts his instincts when it comes to the scripts that come his way, and to him, Operation Valentine’s script was really good on paper—so real, so human, and so original. Because it’s a human business, if you’re going to be associated with something or someone here at least, then, “I want to make sure that I am surrounded by the right people. I cannot work in an environment where I don’t like the people. As soon as I got the call from Shakti, who is our director, and another beautiful human, who is our writer, called Aamir, I adored them from the first moment. I didn’t know anybody else, so I jumped on it. As far as my character was concerned, there was this innate lightness about Squadron Leader Yash Sharma—dutiful, patriotism, and all of that—there was this very beautiful lightness, so much life and romance in it.”
He was really drawn to the project and the script because he felt that he had it within him at some point in life. It kind of mastered up, he says, with a lot of things that life throws at you, and you kind of mask a lot of things in your personality.
Speaking of his preparations, since Operation Valentine wasn’t a biopic, he says he didn’t really have to learn much of their body language or anything about them or the way they spoke. For him, as far as the preparation was concerned, “I really like to familiarise myself with the world and get into it. For me, the first go-to research method is to go on the internet and start to research these things. However, I try to look for real people and talk to real people who are either in the army force, defence, or anyone related to the story. First, I try and get a macro understanding of the world that I am supposed to be a part of, and then mostly the writers have all the answers to your questions, so I call my writers, and they always guide me with the right information.”
But again, there were many challenges on the way! “There were certainly quite a few challenges for him, because you have to be really truthful and respectful to the incident and have to be really cautious of the sentiment that you are portraying because the whole nation is connected to it—the whole nation emotionally and socially in so many ways—because of that event. If you don’t do justice to it and if you don’t portray the right side of the incident, then it can go in any direction. The challenge as an actor, I mean, was just one part of the story, but there are so many other parts, and I think it’s a lot more challenging for the director and for the makers to use the right voice and do the right thing through these kinds of films, and as an actor, I was fully aware of it because we were shooting at the real air base in Gwalior. I was always very aware of what it meant to so many people and soldiers, the Indian army, defence air force, and everybody else, so having that sense of responsibility and just understanding the gravity of the situation and the relevance of it in our lives, even as civilians, was constantly in the back of our heads.”
With many films around the Air Force, Defence, Navy, coming up, he feels that every war tribute film has a very set structure, and the beauty is that within that structure, within that common theme of patriotism and love for nation, you can do so many things differently. And where Operation Valentine differs: “Despite it being a very macro-level film about country fighting terrorism, it’s a very human story at its core. It’s a love story the way I see it; it’s a story of friendship; it’s a story of camaraderie, and that’s what makes it different. I think we are complex emotional creatures, and everything else is just a title on top of that. Deep down, all of us, be it a PM or a soldier, are all emotional complex human beings.”
As compared to his previous films, undeniably, he says, Operation Valentine was very different because, “I haven’t shot for anything that was dependent on a lot of CGI and green screen because I have not shot for the green screen before in any of my projects. That was a very different experience for me to be able to do that and visualise everything and create a world in my head that I had read on paper and which I have to trust will be created again, and emoting with that was very challenging for me.”
Not only has the film been his first South debut, but also that of director Shakti Pratap Singh Hada. An ecstatic Paresh further goes on: “I’ve been very lucky, and I want to continue doing different things and genres. I don’t want to limit myself to anything. I’ve been fortunate to be collaborating with these kinds of makers and getting to work with them now. I’m now getting to choose between so many different scripts. Earlier, it was like give auditions, wait for 2 months, and if you’re selected, you get to act. Now I’m happy that it’s my 9th year as an actor, and I’m very happy that I’m getting to choose now.”
Well, on the work front, it wouldn’t be wrong if we said that he has had his dream come true moment with getting onboard for Bandish Bandits season 2, which will soon be announced and stream on Amazon Prime. On the other hand, he has Lord Curzon Ki Haveli and Brown by Abhinav Dey.
Making a mark for himself on screen, Paresh Pahuja has proven his adroitness yet again with his recent stint in Operation Valentine. After some remarkable performances with his previous projects like Kadak Singh, Jogi, and Doctor G, to name a few in Bollywood, here’s the talented actor who has made his debut with the Varun Tej and Manushi Chillar starrer in Telugu this time.
“For me, first of all, it’s always about the script, even more than my character,” begins the actor in an exclusive chat with The Pioneer. He’s one of those who trusts his instincts when it comes to the scripts that come his way, and to him, Operation Valentine’s script was really good on paper—so real, so human, and so original. Because it’s a human business, if you’re going to be associated with something or someone here at least, then, “I want to make sure that I am surrounded by the right people. I cannot work in an environment where I don’t like the people. As soon as I got the call from Shakti, who is our director, and another beautiful human, who is our writer, called Aamir, I adored them from the first moment. I didn’t know anybody else, so I jumped on it. As far as my character was concerned, there was this innate lightness about Squadron Leader Yash Sharma—dutiful, patriotism, and all of that—there was this very beautiful lightness, so much life and romance in it.”
He was really drawn to the project and the script because he felt that he had it within him at some point in life. It kind of mastered up, he says, with a lot of things that life throws at you, and you kind of mask a lot of things in your personality.
Speaking of his preparations, since Operation Valentine wasn’t a biopic, he says he didn’t really have to learn much of their body language or anything about them or the way they spoke. For him, as far as the preparation was concerned, “I really like to familiarise myself with the world and get into it. For me, the first go-to research method is to go on the internet and start to research these things. However, I try to look for real people and talk to real people who are either in the army force, defence, or anyone related to the story. First, I try and get a macro understanding of the world that I am supposed to be a part of, and then mostly the writers have all the answers to your questions, so I call my writers, and they always guide me with the right information.”
But again, there were many challenges on the way! “There were certainly quite a few challenges for him, because you have to be really truthful and respectful to the incident and have to be really cautious of the sentiment that you are portraying because the whole nation is connected to it—the whole nation emotionally and socially in so many ways—because of that event. If you don’t do justice to it and if you don’t portray the right side of the incident, then it can go in any direction. The challenge as an actor, I mean, was just one part of the story, but there are so many other parts, and I think it’s a lot more challenging for the director and for the makers to use the right voice and do the right thing through these kinds of films, and as an actor, I was fully aware of it because we were shooting at the real air base in Gwalior. I was always very aware of what it meant to so many people and soldiers, the Indian army, defence air force, and everybody else, so having that sense of responsibility and just understanding the gravity of the situation and the relevance of it in our lives, even as civilians, was constantly in the back of our heads.”
With many films around the Air Force, Defence, Navy, coming up, he feels that every war tribute film has a very set structure, and the beauty is that within that structure, within that common theme of patriotism and love for nation, you can do so many things differently. And where Operation Valentine differs: “Despite it being a very macro-level film about country fighting terrorism, it’s a very human story at its core. It’s a love story the way I see it; it’s a story of friendship; it’s a story of camaraderie, and that’s what makes it different. I think we are complex emotional creatures, and everything else is just a title on top of that. Deep down, all of us, be it a PM or a soldier, are all emotional complex human beings.”
As compared to his previous films, undeniably, he says, Operation Valentine was very different because, “I haven’t shot for anything that was dependent on a lot of CGI and green screen because I have not shot for the green screen before in any of my projects. That was a very different experience for me to be able to do that and visualise everything and create a world in my head that I had read on paper and which I have to trust will be created again, and emoting with that was very challenging for me.”
Not only has the film been his first South debut, but also that of director Shakti Pratap Singh Hada. An ecstatic Paresh further goes on: “I’ve been very lucky, and I want to continue doing different things and genres. I don’t want to limit myself to anything. I’ve been fortunate to be collaborating with these kinds of makers and getting to work with them now. I’m now getting to choose between so many different scripts. Earlier, it was like give auditions, wait for 2 months, and if you’re selected, you get to act. Now I’m happy that it’s my 9th year as an actor, and I’m very happy that I’m getting to choose now.”
Well, on the work front, it wouldn’t be wrong if we said that he has had his dream come true moment with getting onboard for Bandish Bandits season 2, which will soon be announced and stream on Amazon Prime. On the other hand, he has Lord Curzon Ki Haveli and Brown by Abhinav Dey.
