Who Is Dar Gai? The Intimacy Director For Deepika Padukone, Ananya Panday Starrer ‘Gehraiyaan’
I don’t know whether it was me being an immature child or just the overall taboo that revolves around sex and intimacy in our culture, but growing up, intimate scenes in mainstream media weirded me out. Not in the way that I found them gross but I always felt uncomfortable on behalf of the actors, for some reason. To be honest, that still sometimes tends to happen. However I am comfortable with watching such content, I can’t help but wonder what it must feel like to act out intimate scenes onset or how uncomfortable it must be. However, I recently found out that there is something known as an Intimacy director on sets which is a pretty common concept in the west but a fairly new one in India. The conversation around Intimacy Directors opened up when Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan starring poster had credited an Intimacy Director known as Dar Gai. The movie features Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Dhairya Karwa as leads.
What Is An Intimacy Director?
An Intimacy Director is a professional on set whose job it is to ensure that intimate scenes are done with the comfort and safety of the actors. They also make sure that these scenes don’t look awkward and are as authentic and raw. They are recent additions to sets and a fairly new topic in India.
Most of the time, intimate scenes in movies are meant to cater to the male gaze. The scene focuses less on creating chemistry between the characters and more on how the scene can be alluring to the male audience. An Intimacy director like Gai in Gehraiyaan can help change that and help the actors and directors do the character relationships justice on screen.
So, Who Is Dar Gai?
View this post on Instagram
Also Read: Ananya Panday Shares Shakun Batra ‘Laughed In Her Face’ After An Emotional Scene In ‘Gehraiyaan’. Don’t Worry, You Did Amazing, Sweetie!
Dar Gai is a native of Kyiv, Ukraine. She lived in Europe for 10 years before moving to India. Gai worked as a German and theatre instructor for the Scindia School for Boys in Gwalior.
Gai started her directorial debut with the movie Three and a Half (2018) and also worked on Namdev Bhau: In Search of Silence. Gai has been a part of several projects as a producer, director and writer. She has also worked as a music video director. However, her most recent project is in the movie Gehraiyaan as their famed intimacy director.
Batra had been friends with Gai and had seen her work in music videos and ad films. Batra discusses his decision to hire Gai as the intimacy director reportedly saying, “Intimacy is a special place. You have to create an environment where actors feel comfortable. You have to prepare as much as you do when shooting for singing, dancing, and action sequences. So I was reading about how several Hollywood films have an intimacy director. I wanted to make it happen for the cast of my movie so that everyone feels comfortable. We wanted to set a precedent. And we wanted to approach intimacy in Indian films in a different way and treat it with nuance and respect. It was important to give her (Dar Gai) the same respect as we give other HODs.”
While the concept of intimacy on-screen might still be uncomfortable to watch, I do believe that it is necessary to normalise sex and intimacy to the masses. Moreover, having an intimacy director on-screen as Gehraiyaan had in the form of Dar Gai can help present intimacy in a realistic manner while normalizing healthy sexual relationships.
Shefali Shah Says Age Played A Significant Role In Getting The Right Projects
