Neil Nitin Mukesh on Bypass Road: Wrote film keeping myself in mind

Neil Nitin Mukesh on penning his upcoming thriller, Bypass Road, to be helmed by brother Naman Nitin Mukesh

Neil Nitin Mukesh on Bypass Road: Wrote film keeping myself in mind

Neil Nitin Mukesh and brother Naman

Even as cinephiles gear up to watch Taapsee Pannu's home-invasion thriller Game Over, which releases this week, another Bollywood offering that tackles the subject is underway. Neil Nitin Mukesh's Bypass Road, which has been written and produced under his banner NNM films, along with co-producer Madan Paliwal, marks the directorial debut of his brother, Naman.

It was the limited number of thrillers being churned out from the industry that prompted the actor to take to writing. "The thriller genre is my forte. I started my career with one [Johnny Gaddaar, 2007]. I always wondered why there were limited filmmakers making good thrillers. Our film is a whodunit, a murder mystery with another element that we are keeping under wraps, for now."

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Lamenting that he hadn't been offered a promising thriller to feature in, Neil penned the script to align with his acting sensibilities. "In fact, all the characters that I developed are ones that I can portray. At the same time, turning producer with this [film] was also an organic process."

Bypass Road sees him as a paraplegic. "It is about a man who meets with an accident and is impaired, waist-down. When he arrives in his hometown, he realises that someone who he was related to, is murdered. The film is also about one's survival instincts." Juggling between this movie and Prabhas-starrer Saaho was no mean feat. "In Saaho, I had to [look] fit. But for Bypass Road, I had to gain weight. We can't show a disabled person with six-pack [abs]. We were shooting for almost 16 hours, most of which I spent in a wheelchair."

Brother Naman graduated from being Neil's sounding board during the scripting process to emerging as the director. "We didn't plan for him to direct it. But, when I was writing it, he would come [to me] with inputs. That's when I sensed that he was the right person to direct it. Our understanding of each other's sensibilities and shortcomings helps us craft a better product."

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