Filmmaker Anand Gandhi, known for his films such as Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad, recently announced his new project Emergence which is based on a pandemic. The filmmaker had written the script back in 2015 and one person he was sure he wanted to cast was Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor was very eager to work with Anand and were in talks with him regarding the project.
The Quint spoke to the filmmaker, who told us how Sushant’s death has been a personal loss and how he is still trying to come to terms with it.
Sushant really, really loved the script. It was something he was extremely keen on being a part of. I was very keen on having him onboard. My last few months of conversation with him are pretty much messages loaded with him reminding me to get back to this film and work on it.Anand Gandhi, Filmmaker
The filmmaker also revealed that Emergence was not the only film he was planning to collaborate with Sushant on. He wrote two more films keeping the late actor in mind.
Not just this project, there are two other projects where we had written the character imagining him. He was very keen on doing those characters as well. To the extent that in one of my stories, a character is named Sushant just so that I remember who is going to play it. Just so that I can see him every time I flesh out the character.
Anand also weighed in on the much-talked about topic nepotism and about being an outsider. "Nepotism has always been there. We are a nepotistic society. So people who have a problem with nepotism need to understand it is a consequence of a deep corruption that is a part of our reality which we need to fight but not in a superficial way. If you want to fight nepotism you need to fight cast, creed, race, communalism. Everything in this country that is decided by somebody’s birth", the filmmaker said.
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