As an actor taking his initial steps into Bollywood, Avinash Tiwary knows that his next offering must be significantly noteworthy if he hopes to live up to the acclaim he received for his last film, Laila Majnu. Evidently then, he isn't willing to forgo the toil he put into understanding and acquiring the mindset of Dawood since early November when work on Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani's Dongri to Dubai first kicked off.

After the shooting was stalled in March when the lockdown was announced, Tiwary says being attuned to the character for the forthcoming leg, is becoming increasingly arduous for him. "I hope we start [shooting] soon so that I can finish it. I don't want to sit with this part for too long. As much as it is liberating to be on the OTT platform, it is suffocating to be in this mould and state of mind. It eventually gets to you because you can't live in that space forever."

It was across several sets in Mumbai that filming for the screen adaptation of Hussain Zaidi's book began, only to come to a halt on March 17. "A lot of portions are still to be shot. Now, we have no idea when we will roll again."

Having an artiste as fine as Kay Kay Menon to share screen space with implies Tiwary has abundant opportunity to grow while working on the offering. "When I started out as an actor in theatre, I would idolise him. I try and learn from everything he does on sets."

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