Jamie Lever’s debut short film Cuddles to release on Disney+ Hotstar

Veteran actor Johnny Lever's daughter, Jamie Lever, is making her acting debut as a lead with Kabeer Khurana’s short film, Cuddles. 

Starring Jamie Lever, Viveck Vaswani and Komal Chhabria, Cuddles will be streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from December 3. Cuddles is based on a short story by Larissa Theule (Kafka and the Doll). It is written and directed by Kabeer Khurana and co-written by Avirat Parekh.

 Talking about Cuddles, Jamie said, “I was sold on the script when I met Kabeer and understood his vision as he narrated the story to me. It was difficult for me as I have always done comedy and this is a very unique project, very subtle, very real, from the heart, different from all the other things I've done in the past.

She added, "When it comes to comedy you can go over the top and be loud with your performance but when you have a subject like this, you have to really be subtle, heartfelt and underplay to bring out those deep emotions."

On his choice of actors, director Kabeer Khurana said, “Casting for short films is always challenging. Since shorts don't have a market, the effort is always to not just cast a competent actor who fits the look of the character but who is also a known face to gain the right visibility online. A lot of names were thrown into the mix, Jamie’s and Viveck's names also came up. My mom was a big fan of Jamie's stand-up and online content and I thought it would be interesting to have her break the stereotype of just being a comedian, to being a nuanced & emotional performer."