Nikhil Dwivedi: I used to manage Richa Chadha’s shoot dates

Nikhil Dwivedi recently made his debut as a producer in Bollywood with the film Veere Di Wedding, but the actor is not new to the whole production scene. Nikhil shares that in most of the films that he has starred in, he ended up being the executive producer by default as things would go terribly wrong on the sets.

Talking about how he turned a producer, Nikhil, who has starred in films like My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves (2008), Shor in the City (2011), Hate Story (2012) Tamanchey (2014), shares, “Initially, my films did not do too well. So, the kind of films and the kind of producers casting me, were the independent sorts with no experience in filmmaking as such. They could lay their hands on somebody like me who was not doing too well. So, eventually I would also end up being the executive producer of the films as I could see everything going wrong.”

He further says, “In my last film [Tamanchey], I was working out Richa Chadha’s dates as well and managing her shooting schedules. In the process of all of it, I learnt to be a producer. Again, my producers didn’t have too much money, so I learnt to make films in less money.”

His first co-production, which starred Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Talsania, has become a phenomenal success. But Nikhil says it wasn’t an easy film to do as a first-time producer.

“When we started out, it was just a project with a few girls. Also, it wasn’t an inexpensive project. We wanted to shoot in a certain way, there was some money involved. Experts tell you it will not be a win-win situation. So, when such a film does well, it is very encouraging. It gives me more to keep on doing what I am doing,” he muses.