Telugu film Jersey starred Nani in the lead role. Nani’s Jersey is a heartwarming story, which featured the actor in the role of Arjun, an immensely talented cricket player who quits the game when he repeatedly gets rejected to play in the Indian team due to bureaucracy.
On Tuesday, celebrating three years of the film’s release, Nani shared a deleted scene from Jersey and spoke about how it was director Gowtam Tinnanuri’s favourite scene, but couldn’t make it to the final cut. The two-and-a-half-minute-long clip shows Arjun (Nani) having a serious conversation with Sarah’s father (character played by Shraddha Srinath). In the scene, Sarah’s father offers monetary help to Arjun and asks him to get a job.
However, Arjun declines the offer. Sarah’s father ridicules Arjun’s dream to play for the National team and tries to pull him down. However, Arjun, who is shown as a strong-headed, self-esteemed individual, gives a befitting reply to Sarah’s father. “I have just started living. Let me live. I know how to look after my wife and my son,” he is heard saying. The scene seems to be from the second half of the film when Arjun aspires to make a comeback to cricket so he can gift a jersey to his son.
The 2019 release proved to be one of the most popular performances of Nani. The film also fetched National Film Awards for Best Feature Film and Best Editing. The film has been remade in Hindi with Shahid Kapoor playing the lead role, and is due for a theatrical release this week. The remake has also been directed by Gowtam Tinnanuri.
Earlier in an interview with PTI, Shahid said that both, Jersey and Kabir Singh, maybe emotional stories, but they are also different from each other.
“It has the same kind of emotional depth that the love story of Kabir Singh had. Kabir Singh was a modern aggressive version of Devdas, actually. It is a man who destroys himself out of love for someone…The only difference is that man is reactive, and aggressive. (But) Arjun is a family man. I could very much relate to Arjun, I am a family man, and I have been married for seven years. I understand what comes with marriage, in terms of relationships, responsibilities, how it changes you from being a boy to a man. All your priorities and considerations get driven by the larger unit, you don’t feel like an individual,” he said.
The Hindi adaptation of Jersey is set to release on April 22.
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