Anubhav Sinha and Taapsee Pannu’s new film Assi takes the conversation on gender, from their last outing Thappad (2020), much forward. It’s also a more authentic and evolved courtroom drama than their first collaboration, Mulk (2018). In this exclusive interview with SCREEN, Sinha breaks down Assi, the challenge of depicting sexual assault sequences, how he evaded the inherent male gaze, and rounding up another stellar ensemble cast.Assi starts with some graphic scenes of sexual assault. Was it a challenge to bring them to screen?I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I wrote it over two hours at dusk. By the time I got up, it was night. I was disgusted with myself. I mailed it to my co-writer Gaurav Solanki, thinking he’d say it’s very bad. But he said it’s lovely. That’s how it evolved. It was instinctive. We didn’t design it. I really had to go into the depths of my evil to get to that point. That shot where the camera is under the car is the dark depths of evil. I hate that shot. But it does its job.There’s a scene in Assi, in which Taapee’s character tells another that if he really wants to be a hero, he should break the “bhaichare ka chakravyuh” or the bro code. Have you also done that within the film industry?I have stepped out of the bro code a few times. But most of the times, I’m with people who are like me in their conduct and value system. Bro code is very patriarchal. I don’t subscribe to it. Now that I look back, it comes from my father. He’s 94 today, and I can’t thank him enough. Those days, they never sat you down and talked to you. But you just got informed by their conduct subliminally.Assi also has a track of vigilante justice. Do you think our films also perpetuate that school of thought?For the mass commercial cinema, there’s a dire need of a hero. For that, you need a victim. Then, there’s also the system of patriarchy. So, when you write a song celebrating a woman, “Khoob ladi mardani wo toh Jhansi wali rani thi.” She was a mardaani, not an aurat. So, it’s a man’s attribute adopted by a woman. So, you need a woman to be raped for a hero to rise and avenge it. Long back, there used to be a joke, by either Prem Chopra or Ranjeet, when the woman used to say, “Mujhe bhagwan ke liye chhod do,” he’s say, “Tujhe bhagwan ke liye chhod dunga toh mera kya hoga!” It was a joke! People laughed at it.Story continues below this adYou had Mrunmayee Lagoo as a co-writer on Thappad. Were you and Gaurav confident this time that you wouldn’t need a female voice in the writers room?We never felt insufficient. When I write a film about women, then I watch a lot of films made by women — how they see the world and how they see a moment. The most difficult part for a man to make a film like this is to feel like a woman. So, we kept questioning each other if we’re applying our male gaze. We were constantly aware and educating ourselves by reading accounts of rape survivors. That must have helped because so far, I’ve not been accused of male gaze in this film.What kind of films did you watch?I watched the films of Justine Triet, the director of Anatomy of a Fall. Thelma & Louise is outstanding to see women caught in a structure, breaking out of it, and then going erratic. Women are way more interesting, layered, and nuanced than men. And I don’t say this as a man, but as a character of this human species.Zeeshan Ayyub, who plays the survivor’s husband, was so refreshingly silent and supportive. What was your brief to him?Story continues below this adI said, ‘Your wife has had an accident, and her right leg is amputated. That’s all that’s happened from your point of view. There’s no sanctity lost, no stigma. It just happened, an accident.’ We knew we were probably treading on the danger of the actor not doing his job well. So much has happened to him. Why is he not traumatized?Assi also includes the next generation in the discourse around sexual abuse despite them being kids. What was the idea behind that?To me, that’s the last and probably the only refuge. We’ve messed up and failed. And the sooner we accept it, the sooner it gets better.Do you think we need more actors like Taapsee Pannu who goes back to an Assi even after peaking with a Dunki?Story continues below this adYes, we do. I met a lady actor who said she wanted to work with me. I said you can’t because if you do a film like this, there’s no going back. That’s the problem. But it was quite incredible of Raju (Rajkumar Hirani) and Shah Rukh Khan to think of Taapsee for a film like that.How did you think of Kani Kusruti for the survivor’s role despite her not having done any mainstream Hindi films?Of course, I watched Kani for the first time in All We Imagine As Light (2024) and wow! Strangely, I never thought of her until Mukesh Chhabra brought up her name. And that’s why you have casting directors. She’s fantastic, man!What about casting Revathy as the judge?I knew Revathy was fantastic. It’s always a problem casting a great actor in a judge’s part because it’s the same problem as Vijay Varma sitting in the cockpit through six episodes. He can’t even look at the co-actors. He’s looking ahead in the sky. Similarly, a judge has to sit in one place, maintain decorum, and then make an impact. There was a time when our schedules changed and it almost fell apart. I wouldn’t say yes to any of Mukesh’s suggestions. Then one day, he said, “Let me call her up one more time. Let us try.” He called me back and said, “Her schedule got cancelled, and the reason why she didn’t call us is because she thought you must’ve cast someone else.” And yay, suddenly we have Revathy back in the film. And she’s incredible.Story continues below this adAssi also has your usual suspects — Manoj Pahwa and Kumud Mishra. They just have a default place in your films now, right?Mukesh Chhabra and my son keep troubling me that all your films are with the same actors. Sudhir Mishra gave me the examples of Coen Brothers (and Frances McDormand) and Martin Scorsese (and Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro). He said, “There’s no problem. Do your thing.Also Read — Kani Kusruti tells Bollywood filmmakers ‘please don’t cast me’ because of her language constraint: ‘Don’t think I can learn Hindi that fast’What about the special appearances in this film — Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak, and Seema Pahwa?Story continues below this adI’ve emotionally blackmailed Supriya, Seema, and Naseer bhai. I’ve made very cute calls to them. I don’t know why but he allows me a lot of this. I went to him for IC184 like this only. It became bigger than what I thought it would. I asked him, “Sir chai pilaiye na.” He called me the next morning. I kept going in circles till he said, “Kya hai?” I said there’s a small role. He just said, “Kar dunga.“