‘The Night Manager’ creator Sandeep Modi on filming in Sri Lanka: I was stressed out

Mumbai, Feb 10 (PTI) “The Night Manager” creator Sandeep Modi says the team had a difficult time while shooting for the show in Sri Lanka last year.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced the worst economic crisis since independence which led to months-long public protests leading to a political crisis. Shortages of essentials due to the forex crisis forced people onto the streets demanding the resignation of the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Modi said they too faced a situation where they had to get food from India.

“The whole team was excited to shoot one of everyone’s favorite sequences in Sri Lanka, but when the problem arrived, we had to take hard calls. We stopped filming for a day to ensure we could go get the food and refilled our stock. We called for food through a flight from India,” Modi said in a statement.

Dubbed as a high-octane thriller wrapped in lavish drama and picturesque sights, “The Night Manager” is the Hindi-language adaptation of John le Carre’s novel of the same name.

The show is created and directed by Modi and produced by The Ink Factory and Banijay Asia. Priyanka Ghosh is co-director of the project, which will premiere on Disney+ Hotstar on February 17.

It features Anil Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapoor and Sobhita Dhulipala in the lead roles.

Modi said he was worried about his team and also his wife, who was pregnant at the time.

“I was even more stressed about the health of my whole team and especially my wife who was pregnant at that time. It was really difficult to manage everything but I am happy that somehow we managed to escape from the things that could have gone otherwise,” he said.

“The Night Manager” was shot in Sri Lanka across Galle, Bentota and Ahangama. It also stars Tillotama Shome, Saswata Chatterjee and Ravi Behl.