Asian A.V. Club newsletter #24: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat

In his latest film Kill, director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat successfully creates a whole new level of action never before seen in Indian films. And we are TOTALLY here for it!

What’s fascinating about director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat is that, though he struggled for many years trying to get projects off the ground, he used that time to hone his skills as a writer, sharpening his ability as a storyteller for when opportunity finally came knocking. Approaching every project as a challenge, his unwavering commitment allows him to push the needle of conventional Indian cinema with each film.

In his latest movie Kill, Bhat takes the biggest swing of his career in the form of an ultra-violent actioner centered around a couple trapped on a moving train filled with robbers. We got to chat with the director to learn how he crafted a film that audiences have never seen from Indian cinema before.

Asian A.V. Club: Since we here at Asian A.V. Club love a good origins story, we wanted to ask if you remember what was the moment where you realized that you wanted to be involved in film or television?

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: You know, there was an incident in my life when I was around six or seven years old. It's a very strange thing. In India, way back in the 1980s, there was only one television channel, and it was a national state sponsored channel. There used to be one film a week which was telecast at around 630 in the evening on Sunday. And because it was just an event, all my cousins, and everybody would gather around the television and watch the film.

One time all the kids were watching a film and there was a rape scene. And we’re all like six or seven years old, watching this scene unfold in front of our eyes. One of my uncle's walked in at that very moment, sees this bunch of kids watching this sequence happening on a television and he freaks out. He shuts the television, there's suddenly a family huddle, and they decide that the kids should not watch films because films are a bad influence over us. Suddenly, there was a total ban.

Now I LOVED watching films. So, what I do is that I start sneaking out of school and I start going and watching morning shows in my town. At that time, morning shows would be all English films, or films from outside the country. And more often than not, they would be martial art films like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Shaolin. Or it would be an Arnold Schwarzenegger films, Conan the Barbarian, I mean all kinds of films, even Italian ones. By stopping me from watching at home, I ended up watching 100s more in the process. (laughs)

It just happened like that. I didn't know at that time. You just don't know what your influences are in life when you’re growing up. And I just kept on watching films, and suddenly, one day I thought that I wanted to be a filmmaker.

Asian A.V. Club: I saw early in your career that you directed commercials. Was that always the plan to train in the field of advertising before transitioning to films?  

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: When I started doing advertising, I was getting offers from films, and I didn't want to do feature films, in fact, I didn't want to do long format films at all. I was very happy and content with advertising firms. The reason was at that time in early 2000, advertising films liked using technology, and was very advanced. We used the best kind of cameras, we even had motion-control. A lot of the equipment was available to us advertising filmmakers, which was not available to feature filmmakers.  So, I used to look down upon feature films.  

Never say never. (laughs) So, there was one documentary being made on the business of the Mumbai underworld. And there was a re-creation portion which was to be 45-minute shootout. They called me to direct and I went, there's no script. The producer said, if you want to direct, you should write it down. Now, I've never written in my life before. But since I already knew the language, I wrote a script for the 45-minutes scene and realized, I can actually write and direct in a longer format. That was the last I saw of advertising and never looked back.

Asian A.V. Club: But the transition wasn’t that easy. Your first feature Saluun played in film festivals, but in the end, sat on the shelf and never got released. How long did it take to make your next film?

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: It was a very, very difficult time. Because once you become a director, I couldn’t even try to get a job assisting. Everybody in your circle and industry, now you are a director. But for you, the film has not been released, so you’re neither here nor there. Sure, Saluun went to different festivals and won a lot of awards, but it never got released. At the end of the day, you're at the back of the line where you started.

It took almost eight years, so it was very difficult time, but what I did was I just kept on writing. That was all I could do. I wrote and wrote too many drafts of certain scripts and had to motivate myself to concentrate on feature films. I was not going back. I just kept on watching films, and I kept on writing.

Asian A.V. Club: I can only imagine the variety of scripts you wrote, because looking at your films now, they’re quite diverse and hard to pigeon-hole.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: It's very interesting that you saw this. Just looking back, what I see in every film was overcoming huge challenges for myself. For my first film Saluun, I had to shoot in 17 days on a shoestring budget. You can't even imagine the kind of budget I had. Prior to shooting, I was told that if you are able to finish the script in one month, then I could go and shoot. So, I managed to finish the script in one month.

On my next film Brij Mohan Amar Rahe! it was a massive production where I had to shoot almost 63 locations in 20 days, but on another shoestring budget. Even though it was a challenge, I wanted to see whether I could shoot a dark comedy which was something I’ve never done before. Then came Hurdang, which is a political thriller. Now, politics in India is extremely explosive. You don't touch politics. If you do, you'll burn your hand. I tried doing that, and of course, I burned my hand. Then I shot a film called Apurva, which was released just last even though I wrote that script in 2009. So, it took almost 14 years to make that film.

And then we come to this film [Kill] which is only blood and gore in a confined area, yet there’s so much affection and visceral action. It’s just been one challenge after another. (laughs)

Asian A.V. Club: Speaking of Kill, I love how the setup of the film is quite romantic and even when the action begins, it’s pretty standard. BUT a trigger comes on and it turns into an extremely violent genre film that I’ve never seen in Indian cinema before. We’ve seen very elaborate bombastic action films from India in the past few years, but nothing like this. Was the decision on your end always going to be making the bloodiest movie that you're going to make? Or was this a celebration of a genre that maybe we haven't seen from an Indian movie before?

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: You know, I didn't want to make those kinds of blockbuster films. It takes a huge effort to make them. I'm not trying to belittle those films, but that's not what I would want to do. I cannot make five cars flying, I would look like a fool if I tried and do that. It takes amazing talent to do those things. For me, as a filmmaker, I need to believe that this can happen, then I can shoot this.

The story actually comes from my real-life experience. I was part of this strange journey where my next coach was getting robbed, and I was just sleeping away with no idea that all that was going on in the next coach. That incident stayed with me for almost 20 years before I wrote down the story. But I approached it in a hyper real situation where if someone is piercing a knife in the eye, I would want to see that happening on the screen, I didn't want to shoot from behind.

Also, the reason why it's on the train is that I wanted the audience to feel that they are on such a journey. I want them to feel that fear, feel that claustrophobia, that insecurity like it's gonna happen to me. I want to give them that experience and connection. The action also comes from the fact that it’s fueled by a surge of emotion. When a person has that level of rage, he's not going to control himself. It is beyond him to stop himself from doing anything. But from the beginning, the story lends itself to the action and that was equally important for this film.

Asian A.V. Club: Growing up watching action movies with stars like Jackie Chan, they always approached the leads as fallible. They were not superheroes and would take a beating that would physically affect them. What I appreciated in this film is that your lead character Amrit [Lakshya], really struggled going against his foes. How did you come to this decision and how did you direct the different levels of his fighting abilities in your script?   

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat:  I've written down every movement to the tee in the script because I've not done an action film before. I wanted to be very sure that this is something achievable. I was I was constantly self-doubting myself whether this could be done or not.

I actually wrote this during the first wave of COVID, so I would hole up in a room, get up, take a stance and I would ghost fight myself. I played every character that fought. I would be angry; I would be sad. I was one of the goons fighting me then I’m fighting the goons, playing both sides. (laughs) More often than once, my wife came in and she saw that I'm fighting or doing something weird, and she asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I'm writing. I'm in the middle of fight. I’ll talk to you later.’ (laughs) Enacting those action pieces helped me because I knew what I wanted.

Then Se-yeong Oh came on as our action choreographer, and thank God, he came. He’s a magician. He's like this 57-year-old guy, who’s done movies like Snowpiercer, and a Hindi film called War and he’s just amazing. He's that action choreographer who was invisible on the set. But the moment you are looking for him, he's already telling the people what went wrong in the last shot. I was so blessed to have him as an action choreographer.

Asian A.V. Club: Kill has so much action, but you managed to make it not monotonous, how did you accomplish that?  

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: To be very honest, the script was very spontaneous. It was never a calculation of now that it’s been 10 minutes, I need to put in another action sequence. (laughs) With this story, I wanted you to feel constant tension, but you’ll notice that every action sequence is preceded by an emotional scene. So, I feel that the action is just a byproduct of emotion. It needs to have heart. So that's why I call it a killer love story. Because it begins as a love story, and even ends as a love story.

Asian A.V. Club: Your lead Lakshya is making his feature debut. What was it about him that made you think he had the ability to be all the things that was needed for this film?  

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: I've always been a person of instincts, more often than not, has worked in my favor. When I met him for Lakshya, I narrated the story and I could see, a sea of expressions on his face. Every time I would reach a plot point his expression would change. And by the time I finished the story, he was literally on the edge of the seat and said, when can we start? There was so much honesty and sincerity in him, that it was hard for me to not make that decision.

The character of Amrit is such a romantic guy who wants to commit to the woman that he loves. There is such a vulnerability which needs to be in the actor and Lakshya is all heart. He looks like a tough guy, but he’s such a lovely person. But when things go south, Amrit becomes a monster and there is so much rage that he forgets what he is and turns into a killing machine. So those same pair of eyes had to have both those emotions. When I saw both of those things, I knew he was the one. I was supposed to meet more people, but after one and a half hours with Lakshya, I texted my producer and said I found my lead. I don’t want anyone else.

Asian A.V. Club: He was a perfect choice, so your instincts rang true again. We look forward to your continued career of challenges. It’s quite exciting to witness actually. Thank you!

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: (laughs) Thank you!

Kill is in US theaters nationwide now! It is also now showing internationally in India, UK and parts of Europe before opening late summer globally!

Yeah… we definitely geeked out with Nikhil! Hopefully you had fun reading this chat as much as we did interviewing him! If you want upcoming conversations right in your inbox, subscribe and it’ll magically show up! Or just keep coming back to our page and have a look-see with our previous talks.