EXCLUSIVE | Hansal Mehta on Scoop: 'Karishma Tanna's hunger made me feel she & Jigna Vora's character are similar'

Director Hansal Mehta’s Scoop talks about a real-life story on a spine-chilling murder case of a senior journalist, Sen Dada based on famous crime reporter J Dey (Prosenjit Chatterjee) which involves media, underworld and Mumbai police. In the mad race of chasing a possible Page one Jagriti Pathak (Karishma Tanna) ends up giving her all, including her social life, family life, spending time with her ten-year-old kid and gets into the dark underworld of Mumbai. In the process of making a friendship with danger, she ends up making friends with the higher-ups of Mumbai police, lawyers and the mafias.

Scoop is an intense real –life drama. It makes you feel nostalgic and takes you back to your early journalism days when all you wanted was a byline on the front page. In a candid chat on Netflix’s Scoop, director Hansal Mehta talks on why he felt, Karishma Tanna was the perfect fit for the role of  Jigna Vora. Vora was a crime reporter of Asian Age, Mumbai. She was the main suspect in the murder of the Mid-Day reporter Jyotirmoy Dey. Her arrest and connection to Chhota Rajan and her life is an inspiration for Hansal Mehta’s Scoop.

Edited excerpts from the interview: 

On chasing stories over stars…

My method is very simple, it’s something I have been following for a long time- Choose the person who’s right for the character. We try to be very honest to that basic hallmark.

What inspired you to make this story? When did the book come to you?

The book came to me before the first lockdown in 2020. The producers even asked me if I wanted to make a feature or a series. I read the book and told them two things, one, this is going to be a series, and two, I want to explore beyond the book.

The book was primarily about her (Jigna Vora) experience in prison, I wanted to go beyond that. I wanted to explore how she got there and the world she came from. The trial by the media is very reminiscent of the times we are living in. I felt the story had a lot of resonance and relevance to our time.

Why Jigna Vora? Did she or any of her journalistic work inspire you?

I can’t say one thing inspired me, it’s a whole bunch of things. This was a story I wanted to tell and a world I wanted to explore. These were the characters I wanted to tell using my craft. These are the characters we usually see in our lives who are mostly invisible. This is a story of a family, grit, and determination, it’s about survival against all odds.

On casting Karishma Tanna as Jigna Vora

She auditioned for the part and I felt she represented Jigna Vora who became Jagruti Pathak, which became reimagined and reinterpreted. Jagruti’s character and Karishma’s ambitions to stand out  overlapped in a world where one has to struggle to get noticed. That hunger, huddle drew me to her. It made me feel Karishma and Jagruti have similar characteristics.

Jigna Vora’s book was a catalyst. How did the research happen?

It wasn’t only a catalyst, a lot of research was based on what we read in the book. We had a team of writers led by Mrunmayee Lagoo, Mirat Trivedi, Anu Singh Choudhary. We had Ankur Pathak who gave his inputs on the functioning of a newsroom. A lot of research went into the writing of the script, from talking to cops to prison officials, journalists, people of that time.

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