The Archies, inarguably, have added fuel to the nepotism fire. Director Zoya Akhtar is being incessantly trolled for casting star kids like Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor and Agastya Nanda and promoting them more than the other cast members like Dot, Vedang Raina, Mihir Ahuja and Yuvraj Menda. But interestingly, The Archies also has two generations of the Akhtars involved in. While Zoya has directed and written the film, Farhan Akhtar is a co-writer and Javed Akhtar has penned the lyrics for the album.
In an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, Zoya opens up on collaborating with her brother, whose first two films – Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya – had her on-board as an assistant director. Speaking about Farhan’s contribution to the world of The Archies, she says, “The Hindi dialogues came from Farhan. He took a blueprint and made it into his syntax and the syntax of that particular language and the simplicity of the Archie comics. Getting the corniness and humour of the comics was tough but he brought that out really well. He was the one who introduced the phrase ‘Va Va Voom’ from the comics into the song.”
Quiz her about her biggest takeaway from collaborating with Farhan and the Gully Boy director remarks, “We get along really well and we know each other really well. He understands my tone and aesthetics very well. So, there isn’t much of give and take. We’ve the ground rules set and there’s not that much that needs work.”
Zoya also lauds her father for grasping the Gen-Z lingo perfectly despite being synonymous with Urdu and Hindi couplets and dulcet melodies. For the unversed, he has written the lyrics for soft rock, jazz and fusion tracks like Sunoh, Va Va Voom, Dhishoom Dhishoom and Plum Pudding, among others, in The Archies.
Talking about his ‘extreme versatility’, Zoya elaborates, “He can write lyrics for a film like a Lagaan and a Rock On, and that’s the beauty. Having said that, it was a bit of a tough brief. It’s sometimes very tough to be simple. We needed the lyrics to sound like 1960s’ teenage voice. It needed to be Anglo-Indian and so, it couldn’t be very heavy on Urdu or Hindi language. It had to be simple, communicative and conversation-like and fit into a rock-and-roll meter.”
She agrees that her ask from her dad was ‘a bit of a tall order’ but is pleasantly surprised with the outcome. “He said that he had to forget 85 percent of his vocabulary to achieve this. On certain songs, he also collaborated with Dot, who’s a musician in her early twenties. He wrote the Hindi lines and she wrote the English ones. I think it worked out really well,” Zoya states.
The Archies is all set to release on Netflix on December 7.
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