Siddiqui on how he may (or may not) have upped his style quotient
Shaheen Parkar (MID-DAY; August 18, 2016)

Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s upcoming film Freaky Ali finds an echo in his own life, at least in the style department. He plays a common man, who takes a fancy to a rich man’s sport, golf, and with that, he has to amp up his fashion game. During his early days in Bollywood, no stylist was keen to design for him. During his first outing at the Cannes film festival in 2012 for Gangs of Wasseypur, he had bemoaned that he had no suit to wear. Four years down the line, the actor has been taking a good hard look at the mirror before stepping out (Check out his recent snapshots).

Nawaz, however, maintains, “I wear what I am comfortable in and to suit the occasion. I am not making any conscious effort as such to raise my style quotient.” For his Cannes appearance last May, his Freaky Ali co-star Jas Arora had styled him. He donned an ink blue suit and paired it with a red tie. Says Nawaz, “That was the first time I had a stylist I could name while walking on the red carpet.”

At the French Riviera fiesta in 2013, the actor had revealed that he would step onto the red carpet in the same outfit he had worn the previous year. When the actor attended the Indian film festival in Stuttgart the same year, where Dekh Indian Circus was the opening fare, he had also stated that he had no choice but to repeat the same suit. With no stylist coming to his rescue, Nawazuddin, eventually, decided to buy fabric and get a suit stitched by a local tailor.

After being part of the Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan, things have drastically changed for him. Now, there are designers approaching him to represent them. What’s more, he has a closet full of suits, too. In Freaky Ali, Seema Biswas plays the role of his mother. At one point, perhaps, she could well have been a co-star in an arthouse film. The actor says, “At the same time, people remember Manjhi: The Mountain Man as well as Raman Raghav 2.0. I am happy doing both kinds of cinema.” Nawaz begins shooting for the Tiger Shroff-starrer Munna Michael next followed by Nandita Das’ Manto and Ritesh Batra’s Photographer.