10 Years of 'Piku': Shoojit Sircar on Where Deepika and Irrfan's Characters Would Be A Decade On

Shoojit Sircar talks about Piku with the warmth and intimacy reserved for an old friend. The filmmaker almost personifies his chaotic, cathartic, moving drama, which featured unforgettable performances by Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and the late Irrfan Khan.

"A lot is happening in Piku, yet there is some stillness. For so many, it is the go-to comfort film. That's the biggest compliment I can get as a filmmaker," Sircar says. Written by Juhi Chaturvedi, Piku released theatrically in 2015 to widespread acclaim. Ten years later, the film is now coming back to cinemas for a re-release on May 9.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Sircar talks about the making of the film, why people thought it was a Bengali drama, reveals Irrfan's thoughts on the script, and imagines the future of the beloved leads—Rana and Piku—a decade on.

Edited excerpts:

How many times have you seen Piku, and do you react to it differently today?

(Laughs) Quite a few times! I was even watching it last month and I wondered: How did we make this film? How did we shoot so much? How did I get these three towering actors and put them all together in one car and shoot them there? If you asked me today to do the same thing, I don't know how I would pull it off.

The making of 'Piku'

Ten years of Piku, and five years without Irrfan. Are you in a position today to describe the vacuum?

Oh, the first thing I noticed when I was re-watching the film recently was that Irrfan is so alive in it. You don't feel that he is no more; he is so alive, and looks so gorgeous and lovely. In other films, he plays a character. But in Piku, he's full of love and warmth, and you know, his eyes...they are speaking so much. You don't feel like he's not there. You can just touch him in Piku.

While casting a character, some actors can replace who you have in mind to play the role. But no one else could take Irrfan's place. The films I had written... I would just brief him on what it was about and give him shooting timelines; I would not even have to give him a script. That's the vacuum I feel now; we don't have anyone like him anymore.

Is there something that particularly stands out when people talk about Piku to you today?

The maximum number of messages I get tells me that it is a go-to comfort film for many. The audience also talks about Deepika and Irrfan, and the subtlety of their relationship is what I think hits the most. Even the fact that Piku and her father are so progressive and modern. Some scenes, like the lengthy dinner sequences where characters engaged in extensive conversations, had to be trimmed down due to the original footage running over three hours! What people also talk about are the life lessons they learned from the movie, and, of course, the climax.

What do they ask about the climax?

If it wasn't planned that way, or did we have alternate endings... (laughs) See, we played around with the ending from the time her father dies. Juhi and I had decided that we would not give a definite end to the relationship. That was for sure. And then in the last moment, I added the shot of the househelp coming back, because she had said she would resume once the father was no longer alive! That was the last touch added to it.

The scene between Irrfan and Piku after her father's death was also improvised a lot. They were meeting after a long time since the trip, and so much had happened in her life. So, what would they talk about? I think that was shot beautifully. Irrfan and Deepika gave genius performances, silently sitting there. There is something in Deepika's voice, it is drained out; you know she has cried a lot, not spoken a lot. Irfan's character is a completely changed person. That trip must have completely transformed him into a different human being as well. So, all that came out in that one beautiful scene, I felt.

Where do you think Piku and Rana would be today?

I have a feeling that Piku might have adopted kids and she must have asked Rana to tutor them! Knowing how determined she is, he has no option but to tutor them (laughs).

Do you remember how the three actors initially reacted to the script?

Juhi and I had started working on the idea of Piku during Madras Cafe. We wanted to approach Mr. Bachchan, and Irrfan had already shown interest. We went to both of them and gave an overview of the characters we had in mind. With Mr. Bachchan, a star like him playing a constipated man... but when he got the character, he just wanted to jump on it! He never questioned it at all, and the same happened with Deepika.

A still from the film.

Irfan was always on board, but his reaction when he read the script was a little different. When he found out that the film had no typical love story, he asked, 'Where is the romance here?!' I told him, 'Arey, hai ismein!' I spent a lot of time with him, and slowly, he started to understand it. I kept telling him that there was a lot of romance... it was not written, but it is there!

I was very straightforward with all of them that I was not mounting anything huge. It was some kind of an experiment; more like a Bengali film, with a lot of Bengali crew members. In the later stages during the release, a lot of people thought this was actually a Bengali film, and I told them that it was a Bengali film at its core, but with an universal idea!