Shahid Kapoor says he chose to star in Jersey despite advice against doing back-to-back remakes

Shahid Kapoor recently spoke about starring in Jersey, a Hindi adaptation of Nani's hit sports drama from 2019. The actor said that after Kabir Singh, which was a remake of Vijay Deverakonda-led Arjun Reddy, he was advised not to take up Jersey. 

Kapoor told Bollywood Hungama that he's usually "very instinctive" when it comes to picking his roles, but the same was not the case with Jersey. He explained that after experiencing the success of Kabir Singh after a long gap in his career, he was unsure what his next step should be. 

The actor said that he watched Jersey a week after the release of Kabir Singh and "was very moved by this subject." However, he was told that Jersey was not the "right subject" for him. After searching for more roles, he eventually zeroed back to this remake as "this subject just stayed with me."

"I also didn't want to do a remake after a remake. As an actor, I've done over 30 films now and I've done a lot of original work, so it's not something you want to do. It's not ideal because doing the remake somewhere you know that it's a remake; it's not original as such, although you have to make it yours and you have to make it fresh. You have to find a new version of the same story, which is what we did with Kabir Singh also. But it just stayed with me and what this story says," said Kapoor.

Jersey also stars Mrunal Thakur and Pankaj Kapur in pivotal roles. National Award-winning filmmaker Gowtam Tinnanuri has returned to direct the remake, which is produced by Aman Gill, Dil Raju and S Naga Vamsi.

Jersey releases in Indian cinemas on December 31.