Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha are on their way to save humanity from a devastating virus in the second season of Spotify’s podcast Virus 2062. The mind-bending series that was first released in 2021 had seen an overwhelming response. Cut to 2023, the two actors are married now and have made some major breakthrough with their production house Pushing Buttons.
Ahead of a slew of exciting projects coming this year like Fukrey 3, Mirzapur 3, Heeramandi and Khufiya, Ali and Richa sat with News18 Showsha and talked about the second season of Virus 2062, their goal with Pushing Buttons, Ali Fazal’s absence in Fukrey 3 and more. Here are the excerpts:
How did you two navigate the voice acting space without any visual aids and made it sound genuine and not superficial?
Richa: You have some help in that in that regard from the person who is directing, someone who is more experienced in the voice acting department. There was a lot of freedom to do what we wanted but there’s also Mantra who was guiding us. That was very helpful for me.
Ali: Also, you can hear you voice and that’s the best part. When you are recording, you’re in there, it’s a very focused, concentrated session where you are literally transporting yourself in that space. So it becomes all about what’s projecting and the only thing you are projecting out is from within i.e.expressions through voice. I suppose if one is superficial then the trickle effect of that on the other end will come from a totally warped version. So it has to be real or atleast from a place of real.
In what ways do you personally relate to the characters or the story of “Virus 2062”?
Ali: I don’t want to relate, it’s very dangerous (laughs). Also because there’s a version of society that’s to come or has somewhere been mirrored in certain narratives along those episodes. The way we ended up our reactions to some sort of a virus, of course we are probably the unique generation or this world to have witnessed the pandemic already. So to have something like this, the obvious thought is to compare it to the one and only that we have witnessed. And I am sure some allegories are there, some things match. You realise what you become. And the dreaded possibility of something manifesting further down the road, I guess it reminds us of being more mindful of ourselves.
You’ve said previously that Fukrey was the reason why you met Ali Fazal. Since the third part is coming out and Ali is not in it, do you think his absence will impact the film?
Richa: Well, the thing is, we are not sure if he’s entirely absent or if he is there in spirit (laughs). But I guess Ali and I would have met regardless of Fukrey but it definitely made things easier and smoother. And we got to know each other better.
Ali, since you couldn’t do Fukrey 3, did you feel the FOMO?
Ali: Of course. I always felt that way. But I landed up on the sets. These are friends that have carried on since then and we still hangout a lot so for me to land up there was not like entering a different space altogether. It’s like home but ofcourse I do feel a bit of FOMO and I definitely felt bad that I couldn’t be a part of the whole journey. But then again, it’s a journey that’s giving always and it’s a fantastical world that Mird has created. I think Fukrey 3 is going to be a brilliant film. I’ve read the script so let’s see.
Besides Fukrey 3, we are excited to see you in Heeramandi. What should we expect to see from you in terms of your performance?
Richa: In Heeramandi, I have done things that I haven’t done otherwise, whether it’s like a very typical Bollywood kind of period dance number. Or like the love-lorn, tragic heroine kind of space. It was something that I was also excited to explore because it comes with a whole world of culture of Ghazal, of one-sided love with society and with patriarchy. So I loved working like that with a director like Sanjay Leela Bhansali who understands classic things very well. And he really didn’t leave any stones unturned to put his best vision out there. We really got along and I loved working with him and he is incredible.
What’s the bigger goal you guys have in mind with your production house Pushing Buttons? And what kind of films do we get to see in the coming times?
Ali: All kinds. We look forward to bring different types of narratives under our banner, different artists who can come and reinvent, evolve with us. We don’t want to be restricted to one kind of genre. We want to be a catalyst of sorts. We are very proud of the work that we just finished.
Richa: So The Underbug won at the Slamdance Film Festival which was starring Ali Fazal and which was something we hadn’t really built from the ground up. I think to be fair, that film is Shujat’s and Vikesh’s movie. But we worked on Girls Will Be Girls and the edit is done and we are sending it to festivals. Let’s see what happens there. We hope to hear some good news soon on that front. And slowly we are trying to put stuff that we enjoy watching also out there.
Ali, tell us something about Vishal Bhardwaj’s film Khufiya that you’re part of? How has that experience shaped up?
Ali: I have actually been blessed to be able to work on two films that are in the spy-world. Kandahar was the field-work of a spy and Khufiya is the other side of the spy-world which happens in close doors. So I think it’s a brilliant spectrum to have when you are really exploring this world. It’s Vishal Bhardwaj and the actors that you can’t ask for better. He’s a monument in himself. We are all waiting and we’ve been pushed a little. It’s this year only but Netflix has their roster thing so I wouldn’t know the exact release date but it’ll be up soon.
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