‘If you like an actor’s work, just go and buy a ticket to his movie,’ says Harshvardhan Rane, and his Dange co-stars Ehan Bhat and Nikita Dutta couldn’t agree more. We caught up with the trio and chatted about the Bejoy Nambiar directorial that revolves around fights between college rivals, and their camaraderie on the sets of the film.

What excited you about Dange?

Harshvardhan Rane: There are some people with whom you feel a level of excitement when their name flashes on your phone. Bejoy Nambiar is that person in my life. When he calls or texts, I smile. I feel good. So, when I got a call from him, I knew that I wanted to do the film.

It was also because of the way he presented me in Taish (2020) and the response that the film got. Karan Johar sir told me, ‘Harsh, in the first 10 minutes of the film I sensed that you can stand your ground.’ And he had offered me another film because of that. Sanjay Gupta sir messaged me, ‘Tu toh mere type ka hero hai’ and called me for Miranda Brothers. It meant something, and I felt that rush when I heard about Dange.

Ehan Bhat: I was out of work after 99 Songs. I was constantly looking for work and one day I woke up to a message from Bejoy Nambiar sir that he wanted me to audition for his film. After my audition was cleared, he asked me to meet him. I thought that it had still not been finalised. But he asked me, ‘Would you like to be a part of it?’ I felt the same level of excitement I had felt when I did my first film. Because it was such a big deal for me to get cast in another film. I wanted to hug him, I wanted to cry, I wanted to smile. After working with him, I can say that he’s the hardest director I’ve worked with. There’s a surprise in the film but we would not like to discuss that.

Harshvardhan Rane: It’s a technical surprise. The last 20 minutes of the film.

Nikita Dutta: When Bejoy sir reached out to me, he had seen an unreleased trailer of my film called Dybbuk. I think he’s friends with the DOP of that film. Firstly, it was a little surreal that a director was reaching out himself. The next day, I went to see him. After he narrated the film, he said, ‘Take your time and think over it.’ I was like, ‘I don’t want to. I want to be a part of it.’ It was one of those films that I felt like I was looking for.

Tell us something about the characters that you play in Dange.

Nikita Dutta: I play Rishika. It is a complex character. She has way too many underlying emotions. She has an intense backstory, and with all of that accumulated, she is living her life where she kind of gets caught between these two lovely men out here. That’s all I can reveal about my character because saying anything more will be kind of giving it out.

Ehan Bhat: My character’s name is Yuva and he wears a protective shield. That’s all I can say.

Harshvardhan Rane: After Bejoy sir named me Pali in Taish, my Punjabi friends went crazy because it’s derived from a Punjabi name. I get weird names. Inder Lal Parihar (Sanam Teri Kasam), Neel Tripathi (Haseen Dillruba). Why don’t I get a name like my real name, Harshvardhan? In Dange, I play Xavier. He’s also fighting for something.

Dange has been shot mostly at night. Was it challenging to do continuous night shoots?

Nikita Dutta: I am a morning person. I enjoy waking up at 5am. For me, to completely shift that routine and get used to the night was very challenging. The first few days, I was like a zombie. The film required it to be shot at night. Luckily, we have all fed on each other’s energy and that kept us going through all those rough night shifts.

Ehan Bhat: You’re constantly fighting your sleep because you are creating something. Sometimes you do get very sleepy in the middle of the night during waiting time. But it’s also a great experience. Because the night is quiet and that’s when the artists are awake. That’s when A.R. Rahman sir makes his music. That’s when Mozart used to make his music. And that’s when Harsh, Nikita, Ehan and all these people were making a movie. We used to start from sunset and finish at sunrise.

Harshvardhan Rane: When we were shooting in Vasai, I lived in my campervan, which has everything, because it was two-and-a-half hours of travel time each way. I chose to rather sleep and work out. My campervan has a deep bar and a pull-up bar for workouts.

Also, Bejoy sir got to play so much with lights because it was a night shoot. You can’t experiment too much with lights during the day. At night, you can get more creative with lights. A lot of people have messaged me that they liked the colours in the trailer.

Harsh, you are reuniting with Bejoy Nambiar after Taish (on ZEE5). Was there a different approach between you two for Dange?

Harshvardhan Rane: We discussed that we were not doing anything that we had done before. My look in this film is different. I remember I was shooting for another film in between Dange. And the director of that film told me, ‘Harsh, yaar, meri film jaisa look aane mat dena.’ I didn’t have to tell Bejoy sir about it because the look he had designed for me was different. When I sent a picture of it to the other director, he was happy. If you do 10 films with Bejoy sir, you’ll get 10 different looks. That’s his strength.

Nikita and Ehan, you were working with Bejoy for the first time. What was your experience like?

Nikita Dutta: I have always been an actor who believes in and surrenders to the director. But to be honest, I was a bit lost while shooting for Dange because I did not know how it was happening. I had watched Bejoy Nambiar’s cinema but had not seen what work goes behind it. So, to be a part of this was a great learning for me.

I have huge respect for that man. To have the vision to make a film in Hindi and Tamil and to take the difficult route for every single thing, it’s not an easy job to pull off. He has not even used much VFX in the film, which I think is commendable. To see him pull through all of this has been a huge learning for me.

Ehan Bhat: I think Bejoy sir saw me only as an actor; he didn’t care who Ehan was. It was always like, ‘This is my character. The whole film is mine.’ He was like a one-man army. Everything was so precise.

What are the ‘dange’ (fights) that you have had to fight for your career so far?

Harshvardhan Rane: The fight is for people to know and differentiate between online likes and comments and our careers. People are not seeing the difference. They think because they have commented something nice, it should reflect in our careers immediately. That is our fight. I am distributing pamphlets telling people to watch our movie in the theatres to make the audience understand that their love in the comments section is not going to get us more films until that online love converts into ticket sales. If you like an actor’s work, just go and buy a ticket to his movie. That is the message I want to put out.

Ehan Bhat: Whatever Harsh said, exactly the same thing.

Nikita Dutta: Everything is interconnected. If you want to see more films of ours or bigger films of ours, you have to show your love by going to the theatres. So, this is our basic struggle. There’s nobody who’s going to keep putting us out there despite our films not making money. So, you cannot fight for us or stand by us by saying that we deserve more and better chances if you all don’t give us that chance.