Prime Video’s upcoming crime thriller “Bambai Meri Jaan” tells an action-packed tale of good vs. evil in post-independence India — but at its core, the show is a story about family.
Premiering Sept. 14 on the streamer, the 10-episode series was created by Rensil D’Silva (“Dial 100”) and Shujaat Saudagar (“The Underbug”), based on a story by longtime crime journalist S. Hussain Zaidi. At the show’s global premiere in London on Tuesday night, the cast and crew — including D’Silva and Saudagar; Excel Media and Entertainment producers Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani and Kassim Jagmagia; stars Kritika Kamra and Avinash Tiwary; and Prime Video execs James Farrell and Aparna Purohit — spoke with Variety‘s Naman Ramachandran about bringing “Bambai Meri Jaan” to life.
“This family unit … really, really engages you beyond the bad guys vs. the good guys,” Akhtar said. “It really stays with you. It’s an emotional journey, you feel what the characters are feeling.”
There was also a sense of family on set, as the show has faced several hurdles since it first began production four years ago.
“This entire shoot was really born out of troubled times because we had to battle two deadly waves of COVID, the set had to be broken and reconstructed twice from scratch, and if that wasn’t enough, we had a cyclone as well,” Saudagar said.
“This project is really a labor of love,” Purohit, head of India Originals at Prime Video, added. “It’s just incredible passion that everyone brought to the table. Lockdowns were understandable, the whole world was battling it. But when the cyclone hit our sets and it was destroyed, it really shook all of us … I think it’s this resilience, this passion, this sense of ownership, this belief is what kept us going through it. We truly believe in this show.”
Tiwary found that there was also a special camaraderie within the cast. “It was one of those rare projects where you felt like all the actors wanted to come together, do readings on their own and share their own research about what they were finding,” he said. “This is one experience that I think I will take to my grave, because this kind of integrity and intensity from everyone involved is really, really rare.”
Farrell, Prime Video head of international originals, confirmed that “there’s certainly no plans of stopping” the streamer’s series in the country, which have included hits like “Inside Edge,” “Made in Heaven” and “Mirzapur.” With “Bambai Meri Jaan,” Purohit has no doubt that it will become a global success due to its universal themes.
“We truly believe that a show like this, which is so intensely local, rooted, authentic and at the heart of it very emotional … transcends all barriers of language and nationality,” Purohit said. “It will resonate with audiences not just in India, but across the world.”
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