Katrina Kaif wasn’t done basking in the success of Tiger 3 yet her upcoming film Merry Christmas provided her a lot to gush about. The Tiger franchise actor took the mic at the Red Sea Film Festival and shared her experience of working in Sriram Raghavan’s Merry Christmas.
Katrina Kaif confessed Merry Christmas is most challenging film
Katrina Kaif looked phenomenal at the Red Sea Film Festival 2023 in Jeddah. Stepping on the stage, she shared various details of her experience while doing Merry Christmas.
“It was phenomenal, by far the most difficult film I’ve ever done. The character took a lot out of me but the experience challenges you as an actor. Also, it’s a bilingual film. We shot the film in Hindi and Tamil. In the Tamil version, I’ve spoken in Tamil so it was two takes for whatever you were doing and that was challenging and exciting.”
Katrina then went on hailing his co-star for his acting virtues and his dexterity in smoothly shifting from one language actor to another for each scene.
“My co-star Vijay Sethupathi is so phenomenal. When we would do the Hindi take, he would be fantastic, but when we would do the Tamil take, there would be a different actor.”
Katrina had to do two shots for each scene
During the film festival, Katrina shared how working with Sriram Raghavan had always been her dream and now that she has done it, she can check that box off.
Merry Christmas is a bilingual film. It’s releasing in Hindi as well as Tamil. Talking about the difficulty of transitioning from one language to another for each shot, Katrina hailed it as a big challenge and doing so helped her develop as an actor. She was emotionally as well as artistically invested, she added.
Sriram Raghavan excels in pushing actors out of their comfort zone. Merry Christmas is no exception. Katrina also mentioned that doing the Tamil version for each shot has pounded deeper layers of complexity into the film.
Both versions of Merry Christmas will be slightly different
Speaking to News18, the director Sriram Raghavan revealed how the film will be slightly different in its two versions.
“It’s not one film, it’s two films. There is a Hindi film that has Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi and one child along with a few other characters. There is a Tamil film with the same Vijay Sethupathi, Katrina and the child, and the other actors are different. So I wanted to make a Tamil film also since Vijay is a very acclaimed actor in the South and I thought it would be just good for us to make two versions of the film. They are broadly the same, 95% they are the same but of course, language changes and some characters also I wanted to change so that it doesn’t look like a dubbed film.”
About Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas has already grabbed eyeballs for its posters are splashed with vintage charm. The film is a unique collaboration of Tips Films and Matchbox Pictures, two revered production houses. Ramesh Taurani, Jaya Taurani, Sanjay Rautray, and Kewal Garg are the producers. Radhika Apte has signed up for a cameo.
The film was scheduled to release this year in December, but the date got postponed. Now Merry Christmas is releasing on 12 January 2024.