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Netflix series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar identifies Sanjay Leela Bhansali as the sole director, with a few additional directors credited at the end of each episode. In a new interview, actor Mark Bennington, who played the villainous British officer Henderson on the show, revealed that on the days when Bhansali was not present, his assistants would shoot hours upon hours while they waited for the filmmaker’s approval. He shared that Bhansali would be sent clips from the set, which he would either approve or disapprove. But on then days when Bhansali would direct himself, shots would get done in 3-5 takes.
In an interview with Showsha, Mark recalled his first day on the Heeramandi set, and said that Bhansali was not present. “I don’t know where Bhansali was, but they were sending him clips that he was approving or disapproving. They wouldn’t send him every clip, they would just send him… I don’t know… Anyway… We ended up doing like 15-20-25 takes of each setup. It was like 19 takes on a wide shot. I thought ‘are you guys kidding me? Is this a joke?’ I thought there was some candid camera. This has got to be a joke. We can’t be doing that many takes. I thought it will be fine when we get to the close-up and it will be 2 takes. And then it was another 17 takes on the close-ups and then over the shoulders (shots) were like… I couldn’t believe it took 12 hours to shoot one page because they were doing these little micro adjustments where they were just moving a thing on the desk over just that much. And move something else in a corner and then we do again,” he recalled.
Mark recalled that there was one particular take that he was convinced couldn’t be improved. They had already filmed it multiple times, but in the end, the cinematographer present on set felt that maybe they should have more smoke in the background. “And I was like, ‘What? You’ve got to be kidding me’,” he recalled.
When asked if this was because of Bhansali’s dedication to “perfection”, Mark said that on the days when the director was present on set, they would get done in 3-5 takes. “Ironically, when he is there, we only did like 4-5 takes or 3 takes. Because it just happens like that (snaps fingers). It’s either a yes or no. Instead of like, ‘Maybe he will like this or what if he likes this’? There was all this micro-directing that (his assistants) were hoping to get his approval on,” he said.
Heeramandi is currently streaming on Netflix, and stars Manisha Koirala, Richa Chadha, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sharmin Segal, and others.
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