Shreyas Talpade and Kangana Ranaut‘s film Emergency hit the theatres today. In an exclusive interview with NDTV’s Hardika Gupta, the actor opened up about portraying Atal Bihari Vajpayee, following Pankaj Tripathi’s role in Main Atal Hoon (2024).
When asked if he felt any pressure to meet the audience’s expectations after Pankaj Tripathi’s acclaimed performance, Shreyas clarified that there was no pressure from the comparison.
“As far as comparison is considered with Pankaj ji, we shot around the same time. So we shot pretty much together. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen his films, so I don’t really know if I copied him or he copied me. But the shoot of both films happened around the same time, so there’s no way I could have seen the film or felt pressured about it,” he explained.
The actor added that his focus was solely on giving his best performance. “I’ve tried to portray it in the best way possible. And the way my director directed me and asked me to do it, that’s all how I tried to do it. So if it’s good, it’s all thanks to Kangana Ranaut,” he said, crediting the actor-director for guiding him throughout the process.
Emergency is set against the backdrop of India’s Emergency period from 1975 to 1977, a time when civil rights and freedom of the press were severely restricted. The film also stars Milind Soman, Mahim Chaudhary, Anupam Kher, late actor Satish Kaushik, Vishak Nair and others, with a screenplay by Ritesh Shah.
