Bhav Dhulia: The Biggest Challenge In 'The Freelancer' Was To Authentically And Realistically Recreate ISIS In Morocco

Disney+Hotstar recently unveiled the trailer of its new original 'The Freelancer' starring Anupam Kher, Mohit Raina and Sushant Singh in pivotal roles. It is based on the best-selling book 'A Ticket To Syria' By Shirish Thorat. 'Special Ops' fame filmmaker Neeraj Pandey is the creator and showrunner of the high-scale thriller series and 'Khakee: The Bihar Chapter' director has helmed it. 'The Freelancer' unfolds an extraordinary rescue operation by Indian mercenary Avinash Kamath (Mohit Raina) of a girl Aliya (Kashmira Pardeshi) who is trapped in war-torn Syria against the backdrop of growing ISIS terrorism.

In an interview with Outlook India, Bhav opened up on the challenges of recreating ISIS in Morocco. He also recalled how he landed the project, his collaboration with Neeraj Pandey and a lot more. 

When asked how it all began, Bhav told us, ''It began almost even before I came on the project around three years back. Neeraj sir came across the book called 'A Ticket To Syria'. While I was in one of my previous projects. In the same office, I heard about this big action thriller happening. It was very closely knit and nobody knew about it and I used to keep seeing Mohit entering Neeraj sir's office and it was only after my show finished, Neeraj sir came to me and told me about it. When I first read it, I was completely blown away by it. It's the first time we saw an Indian mercenary in such a world especially where private armies have become so prominent. We don't know about an Indian mercenary operating and working on his own accord. When I finally read the story written by Ritesh Shah, I was completely overwhelmed by the material. At that point in time, Mohit was on board, Ritesh Shah was on board and then I came on board. I was told to shape the project I wanted to."

He added, ''We started initially in Mumbai for a few days and then to recreate Syria we went to Morocco. In Morocco, we took over a small town and recreated the entire ISIS region which is quite prominent in the story. We had a predominantly Indian crew but it was an Indo-Moroccon crew. We had an action director from France, and a weapon instructor from Italy and actors from the Middle East, Europe and America. It's truly an international-scale, collab kind of a subject and this is what attracted me in the first place and it was something I always wanted to do.''

Bhav reveals he is the only one in the entire unit who hasn't read the book. Elaborating on the reason, he shared, ''I wanted a fresh perspective. My idea was I shouldn't judge it from what the book says. That was our entire plan that I won't read the book but the script. Sometimes what happens is that when you read the material you get influenced by it to keep it in a certain way. I had a completely fresh central perspective. I couldn't be biased. The book was the starting point. In a web series what happens because you are telling a story across seven episodes you have to expand a lot. You have to take it to another level from the book. I have done that. A- took the original story itself and B- the emotional content of the characters of Avinash and Aliya as well.''

This is not Bhav's first collaboration with the 'Special 26' director. He said that he has a very special relationship with both Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia, the producer and the entire Friday Filmworks. ''I did 'Khakee', my first project with them and right in the middle of shooting for 'Khakee', this was offered to me. The way Neeraj sir works, he empowers a lot of the creatives and technicians just to be on natural selves. When he is on set, I am not there and it's vice versa. The most important thing is that we have a common vision of making something big along with strong emotional touch to it. Now, we have a sort of very smooth relationship. I look at him as my mentor and he guided me through the entire project. It's great to have an admirer. If we call the director the captain of the ship, Neeraj sir is like the admiral of the fleet,'' he added. 

On if there is any clash in terms of creativity between him and Neeraj, Dhulia said, ''That usually doesn't happen the way we operate. Before we go on set, he and I sit on the script and sort out everything. See, not only with Neeraj sir, but with any creative collaborator the whole idea is not to be afraid of differences of opinion. It's only when you address differences of opinion you can take the project forward and what happens in a series is each series is equal to three-four films. There are so much volume and space for different collaborators to come together and shape something. In that way, I really feel we complement each other.''

Opening up about the challenges while shooting for 'The Freelancer', Bhav said, ''There were two things. A- because we were recreating ISIS in Morocco, we had to take an entire town, a small village and rebuilt it from the way ISIS would have been. We had artists of 300-400 people, their costumes and makeup. So, the challenge of recreating a different country, a different area, was the biggest challenge. Yes, the action part, for Mohit, it was extremely challenging for him and he pulled it off with flying colours. We have gone for a very realistic approach. Our biggest challenge has been always how to authentically and realistically recreate ISIS.'' 

The 'Rangbaaz' director also said that they were provided with military equipment by the Moroccan government and 15-20 days prior to the shoot there were heavy rehearsals. 

'The Freelancer' also features Manjiri Faddnis, John Kokken, Gauri Balaji, Navneet Malik and Sarah Jane Dias among others. The web series is streaming from September 1.