‘Deepika is playing an air force officer,’ says Fighter director Siddharth Anand; reveals how it’s different from Pathaan

In her bright and fruitful career of 16 long years in the Hindi film industry, actress Deepika Padukone has played several different characters on the big screen. While some made us fall more in love with her, others left fans lauding her versatility. But her role in Shah Rukh Khan ’s comeback film Pathaan was something we have never seen her pull off before. She was sexy, dangerous and badass as Rubai, an ISI agent who helps Pathaan take down the ultimate baddie-- John Abraham. Well, in their next film together, director Siddharth Anand plans to present Deepika in yet another never-seen-before avatar.

Talking about the same in a recent chat with ETimes, the filmmaker explained how Deepika’s role in his next film Fighter will be different from her Pathaan character. He was quoted saying, “In ‘Pathaan’, she was a spy and in ‘Fighter’ she is playing an air force officer. She is playing a character which is authentic, rooted and her research has been fabulous. Deepika plays real life characters beautifully. Although in ‘Pathaan’ hers was a commercial-extravagant role, but in ‘Fighter’, she is very authentic, she is doing a lot of action and crazy stuff.”

While Fighter is Deepika’s second project with Siddharth, the much awaited film marks the director’s third collaboration with Bollywood’s Greek God Hrithik Roshan . Siddharth shared that the actor understands him and the energy between the two is incredibly special. Well, we got a brief glimpse of the same in their previous films Bang Bang and War, which were blockbuster hits. While Hrithik and Deepika will be seen as pilots in the film, evergreen superstar Anil Kapoor has joined them in Fighter as their on-screen mentor. Touted to be India’s first ever aerial action movie, the Siddharth Anand directorial is 25 percent complete and ready to arrive in theatres on 25th January next year.