Imtiaz Ali Shares Why Amar Singh Chamkila’s Cigarette Scene Was Animated: Didn’t Want Diljit Dosanjh To Smoke

Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ was released on Netflix on April 12, and despite it being over a month, the film still continues to grab attention from the audience and the critics. Starring Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra, the biopic of the titular musician opened up to rave reviews.

Now, during an interview with Connect Cine, Imtiaz was asked by a fan why he decided to cut to animation to show Diljit light a cigarette. Highlighting how the singer-actor is a Sikh and can’t be seen smoking, the fan mentioned how using animation was a clever way to do it. 

Hearing that, Imtiaz shared how he tries to not show anyone smoking in his films, and that’s why he followed it up with ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ as well. However, he did mention, “In this film it was important, because it was an integral part of what Chamkila had actually done in his life. It wasn’t imagined, this had indeed happened, and it was necessary to show that.All those people of Punjab who knew Chamkila also know that he had done this. For that, I didn’t want to show Diljit smoke, and he wouldn’t smoke anyway. So woh thoda tha problem. So we used the resort of this comic book style,” he added.

Interestingly, Imtiaz has used animation during several key sequences in the film, be it depicting violence in Punjab to describing Chamkila as the “roof breaker artiste”.

Talking about it, Imtiaz asserted, “He was called a roof-breaking artiste, which was a measure of his success and celebration. But when you shoot it in real life, it would be a very painful visual, of hundreds of people falling down and hurting themselves. How are we going to justify saying that this is a good thing. To make that pain not come out, we used animation over it. So, there were a few reasons why we used it. I was careful to create a mythology, and I felt this was a good style through which it can be created.”

‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ turned out to be a successful comeback of Imtiaz Ali, who was saw a dull phase in his last two consecutive films, Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma’s ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, and ‘Love Aaj Kal 2’, which featured Sara Ali Khan and Kartik Aaryan.