Shahid Kapoor Was Warned By Everybody Against Choosing 'Jersey'

Actor Shahid Kapoor is all set to appear on the big screen once more on December 31st with the much-anticipated film 'Jersey.' The film also stars Mrunal Thakur as Shahid Kapoor's wife and Pankaj Kapur as his mentor.

Following the box office success of 'Kabir Singh,' the actor selected this film, which initially featured Nani, as his next project. In a recent interview with Bollywood Hungama, the actor revealed that following the box office success of his 'Arjun Reddy' Hindi version, many warned him that it wasn't the correct subject to choose.

Shahid Kapoor stated that after one remake (Kabir Singh), he did not want to do another. So he started looking for another project, but Jersey's story lingered with him and eventually, he wanted to go forward with it. "I'm usually very instinctive in what I feel about a film and it starts with when I am shooting that film. I have always felt in fact, everybody after Kabir Singh told me I should not do this film. I went out asking a lot of people because I never had a success of that size. So I didn't know now what to do. I'm not new enough so if you get success after 3-4 years in your career, then you know how to handle the situation. But, when you get success after 15-16 years, then you don't what to do, how this happened, what should be happening now in the future. I asked people around and everybody thought I shouldn't do something similar, where I'm playing maybe a college guy, or, I'm playing a lover boy, or I'm playing an action film, or I'm playing an aggressive character," Shahid Kapoor said.

"This [Jersey] is something which I saw literally one week before Kabir Singh release, and I was very moved by this subject, and I wanted to do it. Everybody for three months told me that this is not the right subject for you, and I really looked. I looked for something else because I felt maybe everybody's right. But I didn't like anything. This subject just stayed with me. I also didn't want to do a remake after a remake. As an actor, I've done over 30 films now and I've done a lot of original work, so it's not something you want to do. It's not ideal because doing the remake somewhere you know that it's a remake; it's not original as such, although you have to make it yours and you have to make it fresh. You have to find a new version of the same story, which is what we did with Kabir Singh also. But it just stayed with me and what this story says," the actor said.

"Now that I'm a father, and I'm 40 years old, I've seen a bit of life, and this was just so close to my heart. It hit me so hard on this subject and what this story says and what Jersey stands for and the interpersonal dynamics between the husband and the wife. How you are when you're just in love? How you are many years into marriage? What it is like to be a parent? What it is to be a man? What it is like to be a husband? There was so much in this film, which really touched me that I had to do it," he added.

The film is directed by National Award-winning director Gowtam Tinnanuri and produced by Aman Gill, Dil Raju, and S Naga Vamsi, and is presented by Allu Aravind.