Coincidentally the Tabu starrer Khufiya releases on the same day as Andhadhun one of her most influential films which released on 5 September 2018.
Andhadhun was based on an eleven -minute French short film, Le Accordeur made a decade back. Director Sriram Raghavan’s colleague from Bengaluru, Hemanth Rao sent him the link to the film. Sriram watched it one late night and totally loved the situation created in the film.
Sriram wondered what else could happen in the scenario. He told Hemanth that they should try and expand it. Rao and Raghavan started exchanging emails about how to take the story forward.They developed the first act and a little more and then got stuck.
Hemanth got busy with his debut feature, and Sriram got busy with Badlapur. After Badlapur Sriram started working on the story again. He got more collaborators including his Badlapur co writer Arijit Biswas, editor Pooja Ladha Surti and Yogesh Chandekar who had worked with Sriram on the Agent Vinod graphic novel. They brainstormed and wrote various versions and finally arrived at the script of the film.
Sriram then narrated the story to many top actors but for some reason they couldn’t connect with the character of the blind pianist .Then Sriram thought that it would better to look for a newcomer with no baggage. He wanted an actor who would devote time and learn the piano.He met Harshvardhan Kapoor who was busy with Vikramaditya Motwane’s film
Sriram was getting impatient. Then he got a text from Ayushmann. The two met. Ayushmann loved the story He was a musician, and willing to train on the piano. The rest, as they say, is a murder mystery.