After giving us hit shows like The Family Man and Farzi, filmmaker duo Raj & DK foray into the streaming space with Guns & Gulaabs. The show starring Rajkummar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, Adarsh Gourav and Gulshan Devaiah is a ’90s-set gangster comedy. It follows a law enforcement officer, a mechanic from a mafia family, a cartel heir and an assassin in the chaotic small town of Gulaabgunj. In an exclusive interview with Filmfare, directors Raj & DK opened up about the show’s delightful cast, what went down behind the scenes and more.
DK adds, “You can sense the innocence of most of the characters in the show. Inherently the ’90s was a simpler time. It felt that it was the era the story should be in. The start of it was the story and everything else went from there as opposed to us thinking, “let’s make a retro film.”
Opening up about Adarsh Gourav and Gulshan Devaiah, he adds, “Adarsh had to play this complicated character who is pretty inconsequential in the opening. He is under the shadow of his father and then he starts coming out on his own. He only worked on the quirks because there was only so much he could do. The scene where his assistant feeds him a samosa by hand was his idea. Gulshan, of course, brings something very edgy. Even though you know you’re styling him as Khalnayak, you still need to like him.” DK further breaks down Devaiah’s villain role saying, “Atmanram is this imposing villain and looking at his personality you’d think he would have a thundering laugh but the idea here was different. I remember telling him not to laugh. The script reads, ‘Atmanram giggles.’ His laugh is a funny giggly laugh. It’s quite out of place because a guy who is so dangerous has this silly trait.”