Prakash Jha wanted real actors for even a rally crowd in his debut series Aashram

Àashram will mark National Award-winning director Prakash Jha's debut into the world of web series. Ever since the makers dropped the first look and trailer of the Bobby Deol starrer web series, it has been receiving an overwhelming response. A fictitious series, Aashram is about the blind faith of people in fake religious cult leaders and Godmen and how that faith leads to their exploitation. 

Most of the scenes for the web series were shot in Ayodhya. Describing a particular scene from the series,  a unit source says that they shot a 1000-people strong political rally right in the heart of Ayodhya and all the 1000 people included in the rally were actors selected from the state itself. 

To prepare these actors to be part of the rally, the Prakash Jha productions team rehearsed the rally scene with the crowd of these 1000 actors for three months before the shoot. 

Talking about the rally shoot, Prakash Jha admits, “We have shot with large crowds earlier also several times. In Rajneeti there were 8,000 people in a rally and all were actors from Madhya Pradesh. So managing crowds is not a new experience for us”.

While it was business as usual for the production house, the locals were not aware that the city was witnessing a shoot, so real was the whole experience. For artwork, there were the posters and banners of Sachin Shroff and Anil Rastogi put up throughout the streets. Some of the city people who were passing by the streets just witnessed them standing and waving at the crowd with phool mala. The camera set up was far and people actually thought Sachin Shroff and Anil Rastogi have entered into politics and are campaigning.

Produced and directed by Prakash Jha, this sensational nine-part series also stars Aaditi Pohankar, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Darshan Kumaar, Anupriya Goenka, Adhyayan Suman, Tridha Choudhury, Vikram Kochhar, Tushar Pandey, Sachin Shroff, Anuritta K Jha and Rajeev Siddhartha in pivotal roles. Aashram is all set for release on August 28 on MX Player.