Jaideep Ahlawat on Jewel Thief song Jaadu: ‘Told the makers, I can manage this much dance’

Jaideep Ahlawat

Who is ruling the internet the past few days? Jaideep Ahlawat, with his smooth dance moves. Give the actor a role and he will knock it out of the park, but no one expected him to burn the dance floor. That is, until viewers saw Jaadu, the party number from Jewel Thief, also starring Saif Ali Khan and Nikita Dutta. "No one, not even Siddharth and Mamta [Anand, producers] had any idea that I liked dancing. When I was asked to do it, I said, ‘I can manage this much dance,'" he smiles.

Ahlawat didn't exactly spring a surprise on us. In a 2021 interview, the actor had told mid-day that he wanted to strap on dancing shoes for the screen (Want to tell everyone I'm a dancer as well, April 15, 2021). Bring it up and he says, "I knew I could dance, but for some reason, such a script never reached me. Here, Sid sir and the makers thought of making me dance. They could have easily shot the song only with Saif and Nikita. But Kunal bhai [Kapoor] and I were included. I saw the opportunity and accepted it." That's not it. We'll see him shaking a leg again soon. "I did a film before Jewel Thief. Its release got delayed," he tells us.

Jaideep ki jai online

The Netflix heist thriller, with its dialogue-baazi and cat-and-mouse chase between the protagonists, comes as a departure from Ahlawat's serious offerings. How was it playing to the gallery? "Ek dum mast," he says. "I've done all of this before, for instance, in Commando [2013], which had only dialogue after dialogue. This kind of dialogue-baazi becomes fun when you know it's not force-fitted. We have grown up watching [Amitabh] Bachchan saab, then Shah Rukh [Khan] saab. So, there is no prep needed to play such a character."

While Ahlawat has teamed up with Khan in the Robbie Grewal and Kookie Gulati-directed thriller, he also shared screen space with the co-star's wife and actor Kareena Kapoor Khan in Jaane Jaan (2023). "Ab main family member kaha jaa sakta hoon," he quips. When we ask him if there are any differences or similarities between the two actors, Ahlawat shares, "As actors, they are slightly different. Jaane Jaan was quite serious. So, [her] preparation was different. But the one thing I found interesting is that despite being such big stars, both of them never intimidate you with their stardom."