Superboys of Melagaon star shares insightful shadowing process of real character

The film sees BAFTA-nominated The White Tiger star and future Alien: Earth cast member Adarsh Gourav take on the lead role of Nasir, and speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, he explained the very "insightful" process that allowed him to get a good grip on the character.

"I was very fortunate to have gotten the time – a lot of time, actually – to spend with Nasir," he explained. "[I] went over to Malegaon a couple of months before the shoot started, and ended up making a film with Nasir, while I was researching. I produced it, Nasir directed it. He directed a film after many years."

He continued: "It was just really lovely to watch him, you know, and I just told him that I'm strictly just a producer, I'll have no creative involvement, so that I could just literally watch him in his element, him and his friends.

"He would film in all these locations that he had shot in previously, many years ago, met a lot of people from his past. Just deeply, deeply insightful."

Gourav added that there were a couple of "strange coincidences" which came to light during his time shadowing Nasir, including the fact that the hotel he and his friends would meet in to draft their scripts was named Adarsh Hotel.

"He also showed me the bike, which is in the film," he added. "The motorbike that I ride in the film is actually Nasir's father's bike from the 1950s! It was just a very, very insightful time."

For her part, the film's director Reema Kagti – whose previous credits include Talaash and Gold – said she was "extremely grateful" to Nasir for trusting her and her collaborators with his life rights.

"Because there's so much out there already, we wanted to kind of start on a complete blank slate," she said. "So when Varun Grover came on to write the script, he went to Malegaon, spent a lot of time with Nasir, [then he] came to Bombay, we met him. So there was a lot of back and forth.

"And Nasir is a great archivist of his own life," she added. "Like, if he's got newspaper cuttings, he's got, like, multiple ones saved, in case one lot gets destroyed.So it was great – there was tons and tons of material. And apart from that, we also met the people – a lot of his friends – who helped him make these films. We met his family. [And] we obviously researched Malegaon as a town."

Meanwhile, Gourav said that he was delighted to bring such an "inspirational" story to audiences and hopes it can inspire just some of those who watch it,

"It was so inspirational to read a story about this bunch of boys who don't have access to basic resources even, and decide to do something about it," he said. "It's cinema for the people, by the people.

"They make films, they take popular Bollywood films, and then they contextualise them to the town, and cast people from the town, their friends. And everything is done, you know, within the town.

"So like, while most people in India come to Bombay to kind of achieve their dreams. Nasir brought Bombay to Malegaon, just very inspirational, and I had to do it!"

Superboys of Malegaeon is released in UK cinemas on Friday 28th February 2025.

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