Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu unveiled the trailer for Citadel: Honey Bunny, a spy thriller series that is a spin-off of the American show Citadel, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden.
At the launch event, attended by the Free Press Journal, Dhawan shared that he completely surrendered to the direction of Raj & DK for his action scenes, which is very unlike to his usual film process. Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who plays Honey, said, "It feels good to surrender to Raj & DK. Their vision, storytelling—it’s every actor’s dream to be a part of their world because it is unique. I am very excited that we are close to the release of our series, our baby. We have put a lot of work into this."
Dhawan, who recently completed 12 years in the film industry, shared his thoughts on why he chose to be a part of Citadel: Honey Bunny. "It’s because of The Family Man. I saw the show and it was a late-night phone call to DK; he must've wondered why I was calling him so late. We started discussing action, and I don't think he was supposed to tell me but he leaked that they were doing something with the Russo Brothers, and he had me at Russo's. I was just like My God, Raj & Dk with Russo Brothers; this is going to be huge and something global."
"Later, I met Raj, who explained the character to me, and the possibilities seemed endless. I was manifesting and hoping that Samantha would be the actor they wanted with me in this. I was a fan of her when I saw Makkhi, so this came together. There is Kay Kay Menon, who I am a huge fan of. Sikander (Kher), I am happy that we are screening the screen space for the first time," said Dhawan.
The actor also shared how he feels that only the South Indian film industry is recognising his talent in the action space and giving him opportunities. "I had a great time and it was a wake-up call for me. Hopefully, a lot of people will take notice of this. Right now, I just feel that only the South Indians are taking note of me and giving me great opportunities in action. I started working with Raj, DK and Sam, and next, I’m working with Atlee and Keerthy Suresh in Baby John. Janhvi (Kapoor) is also South Indian. Hopefully, that will lead the way for other people in our industry to give me action films," he said.
Samantha, on coming onboard for Citadel and being a part of the female spy universe, "If there is a spy series, or a film, it is always the male character center of it, who is doing all the cool action and dialogue and also saving the day mostly. What set this apart was that I got to kick some asses as well, and it was fantastic."
"With the series Citadel, and to be connected with such an internationally connected spy world with connected stories, people like Priyanka (Citadel) and Matilda De Angelis (Citadel: Diana) doing some heavy lifting ourselves is just amazing. It is an amazing way of representing women of society correctly because we do it all. It was too tempting of an offer. I manifested this as well."
Sita Menon, the scriptwriter, opened up on crafting the timeline of Citadel and said, "It was a straightforward mainline connection to the show, which is the character of Nadia, played by Priyanka. For us, the connection was symbiotic right there. However, beyond Nadia, we wanted to create new characters so people could be engaged and invested in them. So we made it the story of Nadia's parents. We always talk about this one core theme we had. We all know about James Bond but do we know who James Bond's parents were? That was the bedrock on which we built Honey and Bunny's story."
Dhawan further revealed that Citadel: Honey Bunny is set in the 1990s and begins long before the events of the original Citadel series.
"This is almost the way it all began and how the future installments would begin. We didn't have any reference to look up to, because obviously, we were in the 90s, so we did not get all the crazy gadgets that are available today. We had to rely a lot on the things that people did in the 90s. Sam and I, there's a big Hindi film industry backdrop to our entire series," concluded the actor.
