Cuddles director Kabeer Khurana: Jamie Lever had been unfairly pigeonholed as a comedian

While it was a comparatively easy ride for Jamie Lever to find a platform for her comedy through live shows and YouTube, thanks to her father, the veteran actor-comedian Johnny Lever, she has also been stereotyped whenever she tried to explore an acting opportunity.

In the upcoming short film Cuddles, that pattern has been broken and director Kabeer Khurana explained why he cast Jamie and explore her talent as an actor.

Talking about the challenge of casting actors in a short film, Kabeer said, "Casting for short films is always challenging. Since shorts don't have a market, the effort is always to not just cast a competent actor who fits the look of the character, but one who is also a known face, so that the film gains the right visibility online."

After a certain amount of research, the filmmaker's mother suggested that he rope in Jamie, as she was a fan of her YouTube content.

"My mom is a big fan of Jamie's stand-up comedy and online content, and I thought that it would be interesting to have her break the stereotype of just being a comedian. She had been unfairly pigeonholed and she was incredibly versatile," said Kabeer.

The short film Cuddles is based on the short story Kafka and the Doll, written by Larissa Theule. Kabeer is also a write on the film, along with Avirat Parekh.

Veteran actor, director, producer and educationist Viveck Vaswani plays a critical role in the film. According to the director, casting for Viveck was equally challenging.

"We wanted to an actor who had warmth, innocence, simplicity and age-old wisdom, and Viveck was absolutely the right fit," said Kabeer. 

Cuddles is all set to release on Disney+ Hotstar on December 3.