Ugly (2013)

Interesting facts

• Box office: ₹62.4M
• Budget: ₹45M
• Earned 1.4× its budget

Ugly is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language thriller film written, co-produced and directed by Anurag Kashyap. Jointly produced by Phantom Films and DAR Motion Pictures, the film stars Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh, Girish Kulkarni, Surveen Chawla and Anshika Shrivastava in the lead roles. It also features TV actor Abir Goswami in his last film appearance before his death in 2013. Told in the course of a week, Ugly follows the story of a struggling actor Rahul Varshney (Bhat), whose daughter Kali (Shrivastava) disappears, and the events that follow.

Production

Director Anurag Kashyap said in an interview that the genesis of Ugly started from his own broken marriage and the relationship with his daughter. He mentioned that his guilt of not spending enough time with her when he was an alcoholic also shaped the film. He stated that the first ten minutes of the film stems from his personal experiences. He had been working on its script since 2006.

After the research, Kashyap finished the script and gave it to some people to read who felt that "it was a very dark and intense film". He said: "I knew that I could make it only after I had made a successful film. So Gangs of Wasseypur allowed me the freedom to make this film without sharing the script with anyone. I just told people I wanted to make a kidnapping drama and to trust me." The film's story is told over the course of a week.

For casting, Kashyap chose actors who could connect with the characters in the film. He found a lot of parallels between Rahul Bhat's real life and his character in the film and hence gave him the role of a failed actor. The two had previously discussed the project in 2012. To prepare for his role, Bhat started consuming alcohol heavily and deprived himself of sleep to create dark circles around his character's face.

Vineet Kumar Singh was cast in the role of a casting director. Kashyap had seen Girish Kulkarni in films such as Vihir (2010) and Deool (2011) and wanted to work with him. He met their director Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni in Denmark, who told him that Kulkarni would love to work with him. Afterwards Kashyap came back and called him for Ugly.

Kashyap shot the whole film without giving its lead actors any script as he felt the film "required" that. During shoot, he would brief the actors about the scene and let them emote to do their own bit, while the camera was kept rolling. The actors got to know about the film, when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Kashyap had told Bhat and other cast that he wanted to make this film in 2012.

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