Jaaved Jaaferi and David Dhawan have collaborated for the first time on Coolie No. 1. Over the years, both the actor and the director have become near-synonymous with Indian comedy. Yet, their paths hadn’t crossed until now. “There was a film that nearly happened some fifteen years back,” Jaaved reveals. “It was a prison story with four leads, me included.
But that didn’t work out. So when David bhai called me with a lot of love and affection for this one, I jumped on it.” In Coolie No. 1, Jaaved assumes the role of Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s peeved matchmaker from the 1995 original. After his character is insulted by Paresh Rawal in the new film, he gets an upstart coolie (Varun Dhawan) to pose as a billionaire.
Together, they scheme to win over Paresh Rawal’s younger daughter, played by Sara Ali Khan. The faithful plot is altered by minor variations, such as the shift to Singapore and Jaaved’s Jai Kishen becoming secretary Jackson.
“My process with each character remains the same,” Jaaved shares. “Of course, with commercial entertainers like Coolie or Dhamaal, there’s always a touch of slapstick attached. We are not making a realistic drama like Fire or Shaurya, which I’ve done before.
Every cinema has its language and you have to adapt to it.” Along with Raghava Lawrence’s Laxmmi, Coolie No. 1 was another theatrical-minded film that premiered digitally in 2020. Meanwhile, Rohit Shetty’s Sooryavanshi — in which Jaaved plays a pivotal character — is being held back for a wider release sometime next year.
“The budget on Sooryavanshi is huge (some 225 crores),” the actor shares. “It won’t make sense on a business level to release it on OTT alone. So the makers are holding it back for cinemas.” Earlier this year, Jaaved lost his father, legendary actor Jagdeep, to age-related ailments.
The Sholay actor left behind a legacy of over 400 films, having worked in movies since the age of nine (not unlike Jaaved himself, who’s been dancing and performing from a young age). “My father will always remain one of the greats of Indian cinema,” Jaaved says. “I was moved by the love and adulation he received online after his demise. That’s when I realised what he had earned as an actor. It wasn’t just the money.”