Watched interviews of serial killers like Ted Bundy for ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’: Sunny Kaushal

Mumbai, August 11 (PTI) Actor Sunny Kaushal says he watched interviews of two of America’s most notorious serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer as part of preparation for his role in “Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba”.

The Netflix film is the sequel to 2021’s “Hasseen Dillruba”, starring Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey and Harshvardhan Rane.

In the new movie, Sunny plays the kind but twisted Abhimanyu who vies for Rani’s (Taapsee Pannu) attention along with her husband Rishabh (Vikrant Massey) who is living in hiding.

“I watched a few interviews of Ted Bundy and Dahmer. One common trait (between them) was that they never thought what they were doing was wrong. Abhimanyu briefly was the same.

“If someone did wrong to him, he would do the wrong too. That’s his justice… His way of saying, ‘You do something wrong to me, I also have the right to do something wrong to you’,” Sunny told PTI in an interview here.

Bundy kidnapped, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders before his execution. The exact number of his victims remains unknown and is possibly higher.

Dahmer, who was also a sex offender, killed and dismembered 17 males between 1978 and 1991. He was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms.

Directed by Jayprad Desai and penned by Kanika Dhillon, “Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba” started streaming on Netflix from August 9.

During his research, Sunny said there was also a “downside” to studying real-life serial killers for a character.

“You have a lot of material to take reference from… but everybody is different. Then you feel it’s not helping. You have to find your own grain through the character. But the beauty was it was written very meticulously,” he added.

The 34-year-old actor, known for films such as “Gold”, “Shiddat”, and “Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga”, said he had a great time working with Taapsee and Vikrant who eased him into the universe of “Hasseen Dillruba”.

“She’s like a breeze. We’ve cracked a great friendship. Not just Taapsee, even Vikrant. He’s such a beautiful actor. We all know what he did in ’12th Fail’. I’ve been following his work even before that, it was just beautiful to work with Vikrant.

“We had really potent scenes together where we were playing off each other. It was almost like an India-Pakistan match. It was beautiful because off screen we both were chill and whenever the camera was on, we had to switch on to rivalry on screen,” he recalled.

Sunny was also all praise for Jimmy Shergill, who plays a key part in “Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba”.

“Jimmy sir is so cool. He’s such a beautiful actor. Vikrant and I were men crushing on Jimmy sir all the time. The first time he walked on set we just looked at him, he was so handsome. He just carried the character of Mrityunjay and he gave it that gravitas.”

The film is produced by Colour Yellow Productions and T-Series.