Imtiaz Ali Shares The Real Reason Behind Casting Diljit Dosanjh And Parineeti Chopra In ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’

Imtiaz Ali is awaiting the release of his upcoming film ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’, starring Parineeti Chopra and Diljit Dosanjh in the lead roles. It revolves around the life of the popular Punjabi singer Amar Singh Chamkila, who was killed in an assassination which remains unresolved. In the film, Diljit portrays Chamkila, while Parineeti plays the role of Amarjot Kaur, his wife and the female vocalist of Chamkila’s band. 

Now, in a recent interview with News18, the filmmaker shared the importance of casting actors who are also singers for this project. He said, “It was mandatory for me to cast actors who are singers as well. It was important for them to sing live. This film wouldn’t have been possible without them. It’s not like Diljit didn’t train a lot like Parineeti did but he does live singing and is used to it. They both recorded the songs after singing them live. The reason behind this is that I’ve never had singers singing live during a shot. I thought that in case the live singing doesn’t work out, we can always use the recorded version and use it as playback like we usually do.”

For the first time, the film will showcase live music recordings, conducted on locations capturing the rawness of each moment. Despite recorded versions, Imtiaz opted to keep the live renditions in Amar Singh Chamkila. Imtiaz added, “But the way Parineeti and Diljit sang live was a hundred times superior to what they recorded in a studio. Live singing has a magic of its own and we managed to capture it. What we recorded was a back-up. The songs sung by them in the film have happened live on location like dialogue-speaking. There were no add-ons whatsoever.”

While AR Rahman is helming the film’s music, Irshad Kamil has penned the lyrics. Diljit and Parineeti have also sung some of the songs. In fact, Imtiaz revealed how both the actors jammed with AR Rahman, the music director of the film, which will also feature six original Hindi songs sung by famous artistes, including Diljit and Parineeti.

As for ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’, the film is about the titular artist, who was Punjab's original rockstar of the masses, the highest record-selling artist of his time, Amar Singh Chamkila was often referred to as the 'Elvis Presley of Punjab'. The film is backed by Mohit Choudhary, Select Media Holdings LLP, Saregama, and Window Seat Films. 'Amar Singh Chamkila' will premiere on April 12 on Netflix.