Found Firangi tad too long? Here's what Kapil Sharma has to say about it

A year full of controversies and setbacks later, Kapil Sharma has managed to release his second movie, Firangi, where he portrays an innocent man grappling with the Colonial Raj.

Firangi is quite a departure from your first film Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon and your image as that of a stand-up comic.
My friend Rajiev Dhingra, who directed Firangi, discussed the story with me for one and a half years, and we exchanged ideas on what we could do together. We decided we would do a period film for sure, but we didn’t want to do the usual ‘evil colonisers and innocent peasants’ movie. We wanted to have a fresh take on the Raj. I think we succeeded in doing that.

Your character in Firangi has a new avatar, different from your comic make-up.
Yes, my character does a lot without understanding repercussions. Rajiev knows me well and he directed me accordingly.

Do you like pushing the envelope?
It will be boring for the audience and me if I don’t. That’s why I’m also planning a radical change to The Kapil Sharma Show.

Firangi is a tad too long, though?
Oh, you’ll be surprised at how much we left out. There was a scene where my character asks the British officer what financial constraints bring his people to India, because normally poor Indians go to Kolkata. They came all the way from England to India.

Have you shown the movie to your friends from the industry like SRK and Akshay Kumar?
Not yet. We had a screening for the cast and crew on Thursday. They’ll obviously say nice things. It’s very important to listen to people who don’t flatter you and correct you when you’re wrong. Rajiev is one such friend; he tells me when I go wrong.