Becoming Neerja: Sonam Kapoor talks about playing Neerja Bhanot - the celebrated braveheart

The moment Sonam Kapoor starts taking about Neerja Bhanot, who she plays in an upcoming biopic, it becomes apparent that she is passionate about her conviction to play the role to the best of her ability. She tells it like it is...

Neerja’s taxing schedule

“I am exhausted. I have black bruises on my body! I am not using a body double for the film. We have been shooting for 16 hours each day, it’s kinda like a play because that’s how long the actual hijack lasted. We will be done with the shooting soon. It will release next year. Fox Star Studios, the studio behind this film and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo want to focus on PRDP right now and will have rigorous promotions for the same. This will be a hard-working year for me.”

Telling Neerja’s story

“What happened on the PanAm flight the day it was hijacked was like a film! When I heard Neerja Bhanot’s story for the first time I was like, ‘This cannot be true!’ It was Neerja’s first flight as a head purser. She was 22 years old and everybody on that plane was her responsibility. The first thing that one learns while training to become an air hostess is hijack training. The first thing she did was press the button to give out the hijack code to the pilot. She thwarted the first instance of an attack like 9/11 from happening because the terrorists on board wanted to fly the plane into the American embassy in Iran but it never left the Karachi tarmac because she had alarmed the pilots. There were four terrorists who got into the plane pretending to be from Karachi airport security armed with AK-47s, pistols and grenades. They wanted to kill the American passengers on board, so when they asked Neerja to collect every passenger’s passport, she had the presence of mind to protect the American passengers by hiding their passports. She had a lot of courage and wanted to save these people because she had this innate sense of duty. She had got her hijack training just two weeks before the PanAm episode. She was really principled. Her mother told me that everything that happened in Neerja’s life, happened to lead up to the chapter of the PanAm hijack. She manipulated the hijackers and let the emergency door open. She made sure that every person got out; she was the last person to go out. She was shot in the chest and back while body-shielding three kids who were trying to get out of the aircraft. No cabin crew was hurt, 20 people were injured, and she was the only one who died. She passed away on her way to the hospital. I have spoken to some 200 people who were in that hijack and after all of that, I feel like Neerja has become a part of me. I don’t know what happens with this biopic and how people react, but we are shooting every incident that happened showing all the real and minute details and every trauma that Neerja went through as it happened. 

Personal struggle

She was brutalised by some of the hijackers on the plane, but she held it together. She was in an abusive marriage for six months so when she was on that plane she told one of her colleagues, ‘I know how to stand up to bullies’ because she was bullied in her marriage. Her mother told me that she never brought up Neerja to be a soldier. I feel very bad for the family but I knew that this unreal sounding real-life story had to be told. It is the most insane story ever and every time I talk about it, I get goosebumps. There is something that comes over me when I am shooting. We have to memorise 16 hours worth of lines, I NEVER forget a line. Nobody on the set forgets anything; it’s like everybody is on auto-pilot.”