Nagesh Kukunoor on The Hunt: 'It's constant to do something I have not done before; my only keeda in life' | Exclusive

Nagesh Kukunoor, a filmmaker-actor, consistently defies expectations. His debut independent film Hyderabad Blues and his political thriller series City of Dreams both include understated acts of rebellion. However, when you enquire as to whether the director considers himself a rebel, he responds with a smile—and an explanation.

Nagesh Kukunoor on being called a rebel

"I don't know if I've ever been accused of being a rebel. I'm going to smile at that and take it as a compliment," Kukunoor tells OTTplay in an exclusive conversation ahead of the release of The Hunt, a Sony LIV (OTTplay Premium) original series premiering July 4, 2025. 

"A lot of the material that I do, it's not with an intent to buck the system," he explains, "It's more of trying to tell stories that I haven't told before."

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Exploring true crime with The Hunt

By transforming a nonfiction book into a lengthy web series, The Hunt marks Kukunoor's first foray into the true crime genre. This was an intriguing and novel task for someone known for his realistic and grounded characters.

"I had never done true crime, and I was very intrigued by how you would take a book and adapt it and what that process is. And can you make it exciting as a web series? Where do you have a larger format to delve into people's characters a little bit, stretch things out, but also keep it engaging?" he says.

Avoiding comfort zone

Kukunoor's works have seldom catered to fads, and in his view, this reluctance to repeat himself is more of an instinct than a tactic.

"There is this kind of thing that creeps into filmmakers when you're told that you have a couple of hits in a certain genre, and you latch onto it, and then you do that for the rest of your life," he says, "If you look at my filmography, I never have followed that format. I'm constantly exploring things that I haven't done before."

Kukunoor added, "I haven't done a political show, so City of Dreams comes along. I haven't done multiple seasons, so I did two more seasons of that. I didn't do an anthology before, so I did Modern Love: Hyderabad. So you see where the choice comes from, is all I'm saying. It's not dreaming of demography."

Creative restlessness

What keeps him going is that restlessness, that desire to discover the unfamiliar. The filmmaker concluded by saying, "It's constant to do something that I have not done before. That's my only 'keeda' in life."

The Hunt is the latest in an unpredictable series of chapters for Kukunoor, who continues to push the boundaries of storytelling honesty in novel and uncharted ways.