Bloody Daddy director Ali Abbas Zafar: Only Shahid Kapoor could do justice to the role

In Shahid Kapoor's upcoming film Bloody Daddy, he has extensively explored the action genre for the first time. The director of the film, Ali Abbas Zafar, explains why no one else could have justified the character except for his 'actor-star' Shahid.

During the trailer launch event for the film, Ali spoke about the process and thought behind casting Shahid for the role.

Ali said, "When I do action films, I always put the characters first as a storyteller, and then I think about the actor. So, when I worked with Salman Khan, many people said that it was a good marriage between an actor and director. After the success of Kabir Singh, Shahid told me, 'Ali, let's work on something together'. We were planning to do a sports film together. But then I got the story of Bloody Daddy from Sunir (Khetarpal, producer), who asked me if I would like to make the film."

Bloody Daddy is an adaptation of the 2011 French film Sleepless Night, which stars Tomer Sisley.  

The director added, "When making a remake, one needs to find a landscape where the story will be set. I was very clear that if I set the story in Delhi, Gurgaon, and the NCR area, it would get the right backdrop, considering that the story involves drugs, action, and thrills and that the entire incident takes place in one night."

"Eventually, when I was ready with the story and had developed the character, the only actor I could think of was Shahid. In the original film, the protagonist was brilliant, with a lot of intensity in his eyes. I felt that there was no other actor who could justify the role apart from Shahid, who I feel is an actor-star. In films like Haidar, Jab We Met, and Kabir Singh, his characters are bigger than his stardom, which is a very good thing. So, we designed everything — action, emotion, and every other element — around Shahid because his performance is the basis of the two-hour-long story. That is why people find it interesting, because a new action hero is doing action in a new way, which is raw and rustic. In this film, even the hero gets injured, and that is why it is real," the Tiger Zinda Hai filmmaker said.

Bloody Daddy also stars Ronit Roy, Sanjay Kapoor, Rajeev Khandelwal, Diana Penty, and Zeishan Quadri. It will be available to stream on Jio Cinema starting June 9.