Anurag Kashyap: “I Made Nishaanchi to Undo Gangs of Wasseypur”
Anurag Kashyap is back with Nishaanchi, a nearly three-hour crime drama that hits theatres on September 19, 2025. Starring debutant Aaishvary Thackeray, the film is already sparking conversations, and Kashyap says he made this movie to undo his own cult classic Gangs of Wasseypur.
Speaking to IMDb, the filmmaker revealed why Nishaanchi took over a decade to materialize. He shared, “The right time to make a film is when everything aligns — the cast, studios, and producer. This film had endless hurdles. Every actor and studio wanted to do it but had their own conditions. I wasn’t ready to bend the script. Finally, after meeting an Amazon executive on a long flight, the project was locked mid-air.”
Kashyap described Nishaanchi as a homage to the greats of Hindi cinema — from Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan’s classics to epic dramas like Mother India, Mughal-E-Azam, and Bimal Roy’s works.
On the constant Wasseypur comparisons, Kashyap was blunt: “I made Nishaanchi to undo Gangs of Wasseypur. They’re worlds apart — like Wasseypur is to Kanpur, 800 kilometers away. People think I invented swear words with that film; I had to shake that image off. My producer even planted an easter egg in the teaser about forming a gang — but it’s not the Wasseypur gang.”
Nishaanchi also marks Kashyap’s bold step of casting newcomer Aaishvary Thackeray in the lead role. Impressed by his versatility, Kashyap said, “He’s an actor, singer, lyricist, and composer. He even wrote and sang for the film. There’s one sequence where his transformation from Babloo to Dabloo left us stunned. He became unrecognizable, like a new person had emerged before our eyes.”
With action, betrayal, love, and redemption at its heart, Nishaanchi promises an intense cinematic ride while showing Kashyap in a refreshed creative space.
