Professionally, 2021 was interesting for actor Ali Fazal, as he bagged some exciting projects in “Hindi and Hollywood films”.

“Getting to work with (filmmaker) Vishal Bhardwaj is every actor’s dream and then sharing screen notes in Kandhar with (actor) Gerard Butler was fun. I think the turf has got bigger and there is a lot more to give than we were led on to believe from our side,” he shares, as he awaits the release of his next, co-starring actor Gal Gadot.

Personally, it was the other end of the spectrum for him “with losses” in his family. “I guess every family suffered during the second wave, and honestly, my heart goes out to everyone. We have a culture of ‘forget it and move on’, par wahi nahin ho pa raha hai. Maybe, as artistes, we are empaths and sometimes all that happened feels like a dream, as everyone seems to have moved on while others deal with their losses,” he elaborates.

Looking forward to this year, Fazal and his girlfriend, actor Richa Chadha’s first production, Girls Will Be Girls has recently received funding under the Aid aux cinemas du monde, a grant handed out by France’s Centre National du Cinema and Institut Francais. “Richa and I are excited about this and with the grant, we are taking baby steps. Experimentation on all kinds of mediums is our goal,” the actor says.

In a recent interview, talking about her career in Hollywood, actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas had said that South Asian actors have to fight harder to get better roles in Hollywood. How has Fazal’s journey been over the last few years of working in the West? “It’s been a journey of finding the right foothold. You got to throw yourself in the right pit. At times, projects are specific, like I can’t possibly start shooting for Mission Impossible franchise, as it is a Tom Cruise (actor) film. But with a film like Death On The Nile, the studio decided on a blind casting. Earlier, my character was played by George Kennedy (actor) and the character was older, so the age was reduced. The colour didn’t bother anyone, so all these changes were exciting. Weirdly, the world is uniting and yet it is not. So, we have to slot ourselves to make headway,” he signs off.