Vir Das: I was the Only Indian Actor in Judd Apatow's Comedy Shot During Covid-19 Lockdown in London

While Vir Das may not have been able to perform live for his audience in a while, the actor and stand-up comedian has managed to shoot for a Hollywood film in the middle of the pandemic. He is the only Indian cast member of Judd Apatow’s comedy film called The Bubble, which is about shooting a film during the Covid-19 pandemic, and was filmed during the second wave in the middle of a lockdown in London.

Talking about taking on the project, Vir tells News18, “For me acting wise, it really has to be special for it to take me away from stand-up. And that’s been the last five years of my life, where maybe I’m doing one acting project a year. This year, I did a movie with Judd Apatow in London. It’s called The Bubble, with a huge cast – Karen Gillian, Pedro Pascal, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Armisen, and a bunch of other comedy legends and amazing actors.”

“I got to go to London in the middle of London’s lockdown during their second wave and follow strict protocols and make a crazy comedy movie about making a movie in a pandemic. I was the only Indian in the cast and it’s nice to be part of a film with the biggest comedy director, I think, in the world. It’s nice to have an opportunity like that,” Vir adds.

While lockdown in India kept him mostly confined to his home, Vir also shot for an original Indian Creator Show for Snapchat’s mobile first audience. His segment is called the ‘The Most Epic Max Show’, where he takes on seemingly impossible and new challenges.

“The theme of the show is that you don’t have to do big things to feel epic about yourself. You can do really small stuff and feel epic about yourself as well. If you look at social media, people are like, whoa, I climbed Kilimanjaro or I went to this amazing waterfall, etc. But to me making the perfect noodles or using just vanilla ice cream to make a dessert, or creating the perfect apology that works for your wife or for any woman, I think that’s more epic, because it’s more real. I was not on Snapchat, the demographic is Gen Z. So it’s a very different audience. It sounded like a really cool challenge to try and do epic things, but within the confines of my own house,” he explains.

Vir has also been raising money through his shows to help people during the second wave in India. “I’m thankful to people who bought tickets, because we were able to raise a lot of money for charities. The lockdown gave me time to pause and concentrate on a little bit of writing and development. The next two projects that I’m going to be acting in, I managed to write during the pandemic. And I have a new stand-up show that I’ve written, so it gave me time to just sit back and write new jokes as well. So it’s been all around very healthy,” Vir says.

There’s always speculation whether a sequel to his 2013 film Go Goa Gone is in the making, but Vir says that’s not one of the projects he has been working on. “That’s not going to be one of my next two acting projects. It is definitely something that all of us intend to do at some point. And there’s lots of enthusiasm and excitement around it, but it’s not the next. I’ll do a show that I’m going to be running and starring in, and then I’ll do a rom com at the end of the year,” he clarified.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.