Gaslight director Pavan Kirpalani recalls how shoot experience in abandoned palace 'petrified' Sara Ali Khan | Exclusive

Sara Ali Khan is returning to films after a short break with the upcoming dark thriller Gaslight. The film, which deals with murder, mystery, and the concept of gaslighting, was shot on location in a small town in Gujarat called Wankaner, which director Pavan Kirpalani says helped set the mood for the cast and the crew. In an exclusive chat with DNA, Kirpalani talks about Gaslight, balancing realism and entertainment, and the experience of shooing in an abandoned palace in the middle of nowhere.

Gaslight, like Kirpalani’s previous film Phobia, deals with a psychological issue. Talking about how he balanced entertainment and thrill with sensitive depiction of a psychological issue, the director says, “It’s been a certain constant with me, that if we are talking about a certain psychological issue, it needs to be very well researched and handled deflty. I relied on a lot of research, read many accounts of gaslighting and tried to stay as close to the truth as possible. You cannot turn it into a caricature in anyway. A lot of that is self imbibed in me.”

And Kirpalani says he made sure his actors understood that as well, particularly Sara whose character Meesha is the one at the heart of the story. “When I met Sara, this is the first conversation we had tha we have to work within these limitations. We can’t go over the top and push for drama just because we need to. We have to stay within our parameters. I also got an acting coach on board, who helped Sara find that honesty. We worked together very closely for a month,” he shares.

Sara Ali Khan, in her interview with DNA, had emphasised how beneficial it had been for her performance to shoot on location, away from home for weeks. The crew set up camp in Gujarat’s Wankaner and shot at an abandoned palace there. Kirpalani elaborates, “When your actors are away from promotions and appearances and not have their phones always ringing and cooped up in a small town in Gujarat that has nothing but tile factories, there is nothing but work. There was only one hotel in the town where we stayed. It was a very holistic experience because none of us had snapped out of it. The palace, where we shot, is massive and very secluded. Shooting in the palace at night added a layer of dread and fear because the place was spooky. There was huge, empty vastness. All that really helped.”

And while the cast and the crew did not have any ‘spooky’ experiences, Sara was left petrified by bats during one of her scenes in the abandoned buildings. Kirpalani recalls, “This is a really old palace, where the top two floors were affected by the 2001 earthquake so the walls and floors were crumbling. Nobody has been there since. All the caretakers would tell us stories about hearing things at night and what not. I was hoping we would have an experience. But there were places in the palace that were downright spooky, like when we shot in the step well at night. We would put Sara in these situations and she would get petrified because the step well was full of bats. She was spooked. We tried fumigating the place and let the bats out but they would come back and there were so many shots and takes where the bats would come shooting in and everybody in the crew would fall down. There would be a mutual gasp that would echo through the palace. But it was good fun!”

Gaslight also stars Chitrangda Singh and Vikrant Massey. Produced by Ramesh Taurani, Tips Films Ltd. and Akshai Puri, 12th Street Entertainment, the film releases on March 31 on Disney+ Hotstar.