Showing posts with label 2 States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2 States. Show all posts
Alia Bhatt faced hatred for not looking South Indian in 2 States-Arjun Kapoor
8:49 AM
HINDUSTAN TIMES (November 27, 2024)
Actor Arjun Kapoor has shared that his 2 States (2014) co-star Alia Bhatt faced a lot of hatred for being cast in the romantic comedy drama. Bhatt, who portrayed a Tamilian girl in the Abhishek Verman directorial, was trolled for apparently not looking the part.
Kapoor revealed in an interview with Mashable India, “There was absolute disdain and hatred against Alia on social media when she signed 2 States. It was because they said she doesn’t look like a South Indian and her previous film Student Of The Year (2012) hadn’t given her that kind of recognition that was needed to play that role, which was already established at that point because many people had read the book.”
The 39-year-old shared, “There were also other big names that were considered exciting and visually relevant for the role. But Alia just kept her head down and worked. I never heard her complain about anything on the set. She did an audition; she did a photoshoot, and that was the day they decided that she is the right choice for the role.”
He added, “She (Bhatt) shot Highway (2014) and 2 States at the same time. Highway released just before 2 States, and the world’s opinion of Alia Bhatt changed completely and in just one Friday.”
2 States was adapted into a film from a book of the same name penned by writer Chetan Bhagat. The story revolved around a couple who hailed from different cultural backgrounds.
Fenil's Bollywood Talk # 828
7:19 PM
DO AUDIENCE STAY AWAY FROM THEATRES DURING ELECTIONS?
Traditionally, the period of April and May has been lucrative for the movie business. This is a time when exams are over and vacations are going on for students. The hot weather also makes it favourable for the aam junta to spend their time in air-conditioned theatres rather than in the open. However, it has been observed that in the last year, the industry is not making good use of the summer months. Earlier, the reason for having fewer releases was the holy month of Ramzan, when a section of the audience stayed away. Meanwhile, IPL was also given as an excuse to not release films when the fact is so many films have overperformed right from the first season of the cricket tournament.
And this year, filmmakers have brought a new excuse to avoid releasing films in April and May – the elections! The voting for the Lok Sabha Elections began on April 19 and will end on June 1. As it’s common knowledge, the election is being held in seven phases. It doesn’t take more than an hour for a voter to cast his/her vote. Most offices will give an off on the day of voting. As a result, the citizen is free after exercising his/her right and can go to catch a film in a theatre. This shows that this is a great time to release films.
On the flipside, due to election rallies, certain towns might come to a standstill. Also, as per local laws, a few towns might ask cinema owners to remain shut until 6:00 pm on the day of voting. Yet, this is not a big issue. The effect of the election might hamper the collections for a day or two at the maximum, that too in very few places in the country. The rest of the country will function normally. And if the film is enticing enough, the moviegoer will anyhow watch it in the evening show once cinemas resume operations or on some other day.
Hence, it’s quite logical that the election effect on the box office is the bare minimum. Yet, the industry collectively has decided to stay away from the theatres until the end of the voting season.
This is the first time this has happened.
If one goes back in time, one realizes that many films did wonders at the box office despite the election fever. During the previous Lok Sabha Elections in 2019, Avengers: Endgame did record business. Kalank flopped but had a fine opening. De De Pyaar De was also a decent success while Student Of The Year 2, too, drew the audience, at least in the first weekend.
In 2014, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 2 States proved to be successful. There was a multiplex strike going on during the 2009 elections and hence, there were no releases. But Main Hoon Na came in the middle of the 2004 Lok Sabha Elections and it was a huge hit.
It thus proves that elections are just an excuse. There are hardly any releases this month and from June, there will be overcrowding and clashes. So many films are ready and had they been released in May, they would have been bigger hits.
Every time Shah Rukh Khan and I meet, he repeats, we have to do a film together-Vishal Bhardwaj
9:02 AM
One of India’s greatest filmmaking talents ever, polymath Bhardwaj, opens up on the man behind the movies
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; December 16, 2023)
Gulzar-Vishal Bhardwaj's musical combo is top of the charts’ stuff. But Vishal’s first mentor, from the world of poetry was, in fact Dr Bashir Badr, whom he calls the “greatest poet of the century, an asset to [his hometown] Meerut,” who had to flee Meerut, however, because of the riots in 1984.
Bashir Sahab had heard rumours of a likely attack on his house in Shastri Nagar. His home was indeed burnt down by a raging mob later.
In the rush that he fled for Bhopal, Bashir Sahab left behind his diary, with all his poetry, written over the past year. When he briefly revisited Meerut, he asked for two people—one, Mr Bhandari, who was 70 years old, and the other, Vishal, who was 19 then.
He asked both if they remembered the ghazals and his poetry from the destroyed diary. Bashir Sahab had gone into depression. Between the old man, Bhandari, and teenager, Vishal, they recalled all of the great poet’s works to him, word for word as he penned them back again: “This is how Bashir Sahab got out of depression.”
Vishal used to spend every evening, listening to Bashir Sahab’s words of the day. With poetry, he says he has a photographic memory: “At one point, I could recite the entire book of Gulzar.”
This Bashir Badr story I’d heard before, over drinks, with his former associates once. As is with such nights, I’d forgotten most of it the next morning.
Including details of the tragic events preceding Vishal’s father Ram Bhardwaj’s demise—which he recounted in detail, before a live audience, during this conversation. Only, a few weeks later, he sent in a word if that anecdote could be omitted. It’s about father and son. Too sensitive. We left it at that.
Earlier, he would cry, recalling the incident to do with his father’s death. But he says, “I found my catharsis in that scene in Haider [2014], when Shahid [Kapoor] returns to his home that’s burnt down, and he’s holding a cricket bat.”
The other story about Vishal that I have stored in my hazy memory, hanging with his former colleagues, is about how, as a kid in Meerut, he was caught in a crossfire, and he saw a dead gangster, right in front of him.
“Oh, those are actually two separate incidences,” Vishal says. “There was Tyagi Hostel in Meerut, where all these gangsters used to live. There was a wall, with a hole, between my school and the hostel. That’s the short-cut route we took to get to school. This is where the [chief] gangster used to live in the warden’s house. The warden used to live in the hostel!”
“On my way, I would see him lay out and dry his bullets, guns, grenade, in the sun. The gangster was very fond of me and other kids. He would offer us to hold his gun, tease us with pulling the trigger.”
“Once, during school exams, we heard gunshots fired. We went over to the gangster’s courtyard after. And he was lying dead, right there, with fresh blood, killed by cops, in a gang war! That’s the first time I saw a dead body. I was in Class VII, so must’ve been 12 or something.”
The other incident has to do with Hindu-Muslim riots, which Vishal says was common enough in Meerut: “But even then, the level of enmity [that we see now] didn’t exist.”
Vishal’s house was next to a Muslim family’s: “They had a large bungalow. The father was a learned gentleman. He had three daughters. My landlord was a police sub-inspector, with 10 children. Those kids decided ki hum Muslim kama lete hain, meaning score/kill Muslim people [during the riots]. That’s how it worked. I even heard them plan on going after one of the daughters.”
“There was word from the police station that these boys had an hour [to do whatever they liked]—kama lo toh kama lo. That’s before the police would charge in. This is also how it worked. I knew about these boys’ plans. They had bought country-made pistols. They intended to enter the house, and blast the gas cylinder.”
“The Muslim man inside had a Donali [double-barrelled gun] that he shot in the air. During what ensued, I got caught in the crossfire, and found my way out of it, into another house. My family got worried, because I had gone missing.”
This is when Vishal naturally pauses in the chat: “That’s the psyche of a mob. I have seen it. You ask an individual to kill another? They won’t. You get 50 people to do the same, without taking on guilt and moral responsibility? They will. This is why incidences like lynching and mob behaviour pain me. The support comes from the system.”
As with many great artistes, you only have to dig into Vishal’s past to figure what informs his life as a filmmaker and public figure too. Although pretty much all of his films, as a director, have been based on works of literature.
It might be fair to say, that’s only on paper. Consider his last feature, Khufiya (2023, on Netflix). It’s adapted from Amar Bhushan’s novel, An Escape To Nowhere.
I first read the book in 2013, basis a recommendation in Swapan Dasgupta’s column in The Times of India. Page for page, the film barely reflects the original text, which was more a survey of bureaucrats, fighting over foreign postings. Which is probably what R&AW really is, on a daily basis, anyway. Rather than Salman/SRK like James Bond agency, banging it in the killing fields.
Vishal says, “The book is a cold account of a surveillance operation. The detailing is so good. [Author] Amar Bhushan-ji was once the counter-espionage chief himself. Now, such a book is not even possible. Because the government has placed a ban. No officer can write such a book anymore.”
What about the leap of faith that he takes thereon from the book—surely, he had R&AW agents/officers vet the script, in case it seems too far-fetched? The original research, Vishal says, came from “seven to eight years spent”, working on a film based on the IC 814 hijacking (of 1999).
“I met Mr Ajit Doval [currently India’s national security adviser] several times. He had then retired [as the Intelligence Bureau chief]. Doval Sahab is a fascinating man, and a great storyteller! I also interacted extensively with ex-R&AW chiefs, Mr [A S] Dulat, Mr [C D] Sahay… Along with Mr [Vivek] Katju, the foreign secretary—these were the gentlemen chiefly negotiating with the hijackers. In any case, they really tell you what they want to. They might make you believe they’re answering your questions. But they’re not. It’s their point of view.”
Vishal’s film on the IC 814 hijack subsequently got shelved: “After the Tandav episode, Amazon Prime Video got paranoid. They pulled the plug on the project. They said they don’t want to touch anything political. The film actually had nothing to do with politics. The whole country was humiliated in that episode. It had nothing to do with a party. Now, Anubhav Sinha is making a series on it for Netflix.”
During the IC 814 homework, Vishal also met the IPS officer Arun Kumar, who was associated with the incident. In 2008, Arun became the first investigating officer from the CBI on the Aarushi-Hemraj Noida double-murder case (still unsolved, by the way).
Hence, Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (2015), which Vishal produced and scripted, with precious/incisive details from Arun who, in turn, inspired late Irrfan’s character in the film.
Tabu, Vishal’s other muse, plays the lead in Khufiya, while the spy-thriller follows this R&AW sleuth’s story of love and loss with her Bangladeshi handler. None of which, of course, exists in the novel that the film is based on.
Citing his Shakespearean adaptations (Maqbool, Haider), to works of Ruskin Bond (The Blue Umbrella, Susanna’s Seven Husbands), Vishal says he’s essentially keen on the basic plot: “I have to know the drama I’m creating—and find a three-act structure, voice, characters, and my own politics and social environment in it.”
To illustrate this best, no better example than to go back to the aforementioned Tyagi Hostel, along with Meerut’s Kachehri Road, full of gangsters, Anand Shukla, Rampal Tyagi, et al. All of whom treated Vishal as their “blue-eyed boy.” Because he could sing and play cricket well. Watch them placed together in Omkara (2006), i.e. Othello. Shakespeare feels like an excuse.
One of the gangsters Vishal knew there was Langda Rathee, who got onscreen as Langda Tyagi. And that’s Saif Ali Khan, in what was easily the greatest casting-against-type for the decade. Vishal thanks Aamir Khan for this unusual choice.
Around the time, Aamir and him were zeroing in on a script, Mr Mehta & Mrs Singh, to work together: “Aamir was seeing the film a certain way. When we were close to the shoot of Mr Mehta & Mrs Singh, he was uncomfortable about how I was seeing the film. We are both headstrong people. We parted ways. But he’s great fun to spend time with, and during our chats, I told him about Langda Tyagi, the character I was writing.”
Aamir was fascinated by the world (of Omkara), and Langda Tyagi’s language, in particular, and wished to be considered for the part. He got busy with his next (Rang De Basanti).
Vishal was too eager to hit the set, rather than wait for Aamir, which would take long. But he realised, “Aamir is intelligent, and commercial. If this role can excite him, I’m sure it should excite another star.” Hence, Saif 2.0 (post Dil Chahta Hai).
There’s been was a similar hit-and-miss between Vishal and Shah Rukh Khan. They were to adapt Chetan Bhagat’s 2 States together (later filmed by Abhishek Varman on Arjun Kapoor, Alia Bhatt). What happened there?
Vishal says, “We had differences over the setting. I wanted to set the film in a bank like ICICI, and not in a college, or elsewhere, that Shah Rukh would’ve preferred. We felt the pain, though. I recently wished him for Jawan. Every time we meet, he repeats, we have to do a film together.”
While his sensibilities are innately artistic, it’s evidently clear, Vishal has throughout aimed for a spot in the mainstream, and achieved it, in his own right. He emphasizes, “Maqbool [2004] opened the doors for me!”
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An apt way to introduce Vishal, as we did in this conversation, is as one of India’s greatest filmmaking talents, ever. There have been few polymaths with that many hyphenated top-end talents, within desi filmmaking—director, producer, music composer, singer, lyricist, writer of screenplays, and dialogues (often separate in Hindi cinema, because most don’t hold an equal command over language).
Vishal writes dialogues in pen on A4 sheets. But gets confused with his own handwriting later. One thing he misses his former associate Abhishek Chaubey (Ishqiya, Udta Punjab) for is deciphering what he’s written. Now, he has to figure it out himself. The instructions on the screenplay he keys directly into the computer.
The greatest polymath of all in Bombay was probably Kishore Kumar who, Vishal tells me, he shares his birthday with (August 4)!
But much before all of the above, Vishal was an “all-rounder” cricketer once—batter, and right-arm spinner—with an eye on international cricket. Former Test player Gursharan Singh spotted him in a match in Meerut, and suggested he move to Delhi. Which is the reason he did.
“I couldn’t have made it to the Indian team from UP. It was too big a state then [Uttarakhand hadn’t been bifurcated]. The facilities weren’t up to the mark. And the UP team barely made it up the chain in the Ranji Trophy. So, I would have never got noticed.”
In Delhi, he played with the likes of Manoj Prabhakar, Maninder Singh, Sunil Walson, Tilak Raj (who Ravi Shastri hit for six sixes), Chetan Sharma… Speaking of the latter, did Vishal whack Chetan out of the park, ever? “Yeah, I did.” That’s one thing he has in common with Javed Miandad!
Reminiscing those times is a lot like, as Vishal quotes Ghalib: “Yun hota toh kya hota!” Dealing in ‘counter-factuals’: “I came to Delhi. Right before the match, I broke my thumb. Couldn’t play the whole year. Next year, my father died. If cricket hadn’t left me, though—how would I have been in music, or the movies then? This world has no retirement age!”
“Since then, I’ve learnt that if something unlucky happens to me—a greater reward awaits. I feel bad, of course, when something happens. But I don’t get disappointed.” From an early age, Vishal used to dabble in musical instruments lying around. Music was internal to his home.
Although with a day-job, Vishal’s father Ram—“everyone called him Ram Sahab”—was a lyricist in Bollywood. He would often visit Bombay, from Meerut, with family.
This is when Vishal spent time with film/music folk in Bollywood. On one such evening, his dad mentioned to his friends about how Vishal, “around 18 then”, had composed a short tune over his father’s lyrics.
His dad’s friends were hugely impressed. They got composer Usha Khanna on the phone to hear it. Usha loved it enough to include it in the final composition.
“That someone like Usha-ji took my tune to expand into a whole song gave me my first validation. That validation gave me confidence.” The song, Khuda Dosti Ko Nazar Na Lage, is from the film, Yaar Kasam (1985). At 19, Vishal recorded his first composition. Asha Bhosle was on the microphone.
After college in Delhi, he moved to Bombay with a job at a music label to pursue music, professionally. Vishal also had a brother, Rajeev, seven years elder to him, in Bombay—struggling to make it in films as a producer: “He had no money. But he wanted to produce movies. How do you?”
Rajeev passed away early. Decades later, Vishal became a formidable producer in Bollywood. I wonder if he feels, in some ways, it’s the story of two siblings coming full circle? He just wishes his brother was around to see it.
Filmmaking itself was an invisible milestone in his head, he says. “I had no intentions. I had seen nothing. Manmohan Desai to Blue Lagoon [for the sex scenes] was the range of my film knowledge!”
It was during the making of Maachis (1996) that he was composing music for, Vishal recalls, “Gulzar Sahab told me, I’ll become a director in five years. He actually pushed me into it. I used to ask him too many questions during the filming, editing…” The children’s film Makdee (2002) marked Vishal’s directorial debut.
Given he was a musician first, isn’t it strange that he’s never attempted a proper musical in films? He reasons, “In my earlier movies like Omkara, Maqbool, I did have actors lip-sync to songs. Because I also wanted to retain my power as a composer. With time, the purity of cinema took over. How do you then justify lip-syncing? The background score is the director’s voice. Anyway, India has a long tradition of cinema and music. Even if I do a musical, it would have to be on a subject that is totally non-musical.”
By the looks of it, his current obsession may be mystery/thrillers. After Khufiya on Netflix, his series Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley, based on Agatha Christie’s The Sittaford Mystery, dropped on Sony LIV. Which, he says, happened primarily because of the pandemic.
“The world was under lockdown. I was convinced we were in it for five to 10 years, or perhaps forever. How does one survive creatively for that long? Many years ago, I had been offered Agatha Christie’s entire library of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple titles to adapt. Well, this is what we could do, I thought—shooting in constrained settings [during a pandemic]. I got back to the person, who had connected with me back then.”
What does he find in common between films and music, I ask Vishal. He says, “That they both work on the three-act structure, inspired from life, of course—bachpan, jawani, budhapa [childhood, youth, old age].
“Also, like with films, we don’t know what works in music. It cannot be calculatedly recreated, even though there are really seven notes.”
How about films and cricket—what does he find similar between the two: “Captainship. That you take along a team, especially when things aren’t going right. And they seldom do.
“Also, to accept defeat gracefully, and learn from the defeat.” Are there instances from his films that he’s learnt from, in terms of failure?
“It would be on the technical aspects. Take Rangoon [2017]. The release date was set. But we were not getting the VFX for the final scene right. I should have put my foot down. Held the release, like Sanjay Leela Bhansali does. I was making a Rs 70 crore film in a Rs. 35 crore budget. I had become overconfident from all that we had managed to achieve, even on the VFX front, coming from Haider.”
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There is genuine integrity/sincerity that Vishal exudes during conversations, and in general too, as his former peers/associates always testify, when his name crops up.
At a recent concert in Mumbai with singer-wife Rekha Bhardwaj, their first time together—they met at Delhi’s Hindu College in the ’80s—she called him a “genius”. Which was one way to put it, as we watched Vishal go from soft ghazals to unexpectedly banging it with the vocals to Kaminey’s Dhan Te Nan on stage!
But along with the ‘shayrana’ mellow, there is also a hardcore side to his personality, I reckon. For instance, I point to him a tweet I came across long ago, where he made a political statement. A troll in the comments section taunted him, asking who did he thinks he was?
Normally, people ignore response, when none is merited. Scrolling down the screen, I noticed Vishal, 58, tell the troll: “Tera baap hoon [I’m your pop].”
He laughs, but declaims, in all seriousness: “There is a gangster in me. Maybe in retirement, the poet is taking over. But the spirit is there—against injustice, or if things aren’t going my way.” Consider this untold story of Maqbool (2004), his breakout film, that is on its 20th year.
One of the things I noticed about Maqbool, seeing it after long, is how little Bombay there is, in terms of live location, in a film about the Bombay underworld. Which can also be said for Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan (1987), upon re-watch.
Some of this is deliberate, Vishal says: “By 2002-03, the Bombay underworld scene had shifted to terrorism. We actually wanted to show a more old-world mafia with Maqbool.” He had knocked on every door to fund the film. Including the possible cast—for instance, Kamal Haasan was the original choice for the title role.
IDBI Bank had launched a scheme to finance films then. Vishal applied there as well. Producer Manmohan Shetty was on its script consultation committee. As was producer Bobby Bedi.
Manmohan had him over for a drink, simply to tell Vishal that he had saved his ass: “You have actors like Naseer, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur… How would you’ve ever recovered a Rs 2.86 crore loan? I did you a favour, by rejecting it.”
Bobby, however, showed interest in the script, to come on board, with the funds. That’s how Maqbool kickstarted. How does one arrive at the old-world look?
Vishal says, “I had seen a haveli in Bhopal, which is exactly where we needed to shoot [Don Abbaji’s world]. So, 25 days in Bombay, 25 days in Bhopal. That was the shoot.”
“Only, that once we got to the Bhopal leg, Bobby said there was no budget for it. And that there is a mansion at the Films’ Division office [on Pedder Road in Mumbai]—it’s colloquially called the ‘Films Division haveli’—where we could shoot. I said I won’t. He said he won’t make the film then. I said, let’s not make the movie!”
It was a Friday evening, Vishal remembers. He got home, made himself a few stiff drinks, and switched off his phone for the next two days. Bobby came knocking at his door on Monday, asking why he’d gone incommunicado?
“I told him, what’s the point of meeting? My fees for the film, including music composition, direction, script, was Rs 30 lakh. Bobby suggested that the Bhopal shoot would cost Rs 60 lakh. And that he was willing to put in Rs. 30 lakh, and I could put in my Rs 30 lakh.
“I just said—if you had told me earlier, I wouldn’t have drunk so much on Friday! Even to this day, while I was the producer, I didn’t make a single penny from Maqbool. But how does it matter? Look at all that I earned!”
Months after son’s death, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi writer Shiv Subrahmanyam passes away
8:14 AM
Avijit Ghosh (THE TIMES OF INDIA; April 12, 2022)
Writer-actor Shiv Subrahmanyam, who authored the edgy yet evocative screenplays of ‘Parinda’, ‘Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi’ and ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ and who could stamp his presence as an actor irrespective of a role’s length, passed away on Sunday night in Mumbai. He was 62.
Movie fans would remember Shiv as the corrupt cop in ‘Kaminey’ and the hard-to-please father in ‘2 States’. He also marked his presence on the theatre circuit as an actor and playwright. ‘Clogged Arteries’ and ‘Irani Café’ were notable works. His more remembered performances on stage came in ‘The Dumb Waiter’ and ‘Extremities’.
Director Hansal Mehta tweeted, “Incredibly talented, he was much loved and revered personally as well as professionally. ”
In an Instagram post, producer-director Anurag Kashyap revealed how Shiv helped him get his first screenwriting credit back in 1994. “The most generous, beautiful man I have known,” he wrote.
Director Sudhir Mishra recalled being introduced to Shiv by Naseeruddin Shah on the sets of Saeed Mirza’s ‘Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho!’ in 1983. In the years that followed they would often hang out together, crack jokes and spar over playwrights. “We shared the same sense of humour. I could start a joke and he could finish it,” Mishra said.
Those unplanned moments of creativity marked by absence of deadline led to the scripts of ‘Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi’ (1996), ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ (2003) and ‘Chameli’ (2003). The starting point of Hazaaron, for which Shiv shared credit with Mishra and Ruchi Narain, were two characters in Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial classic, The Wretched Of The Earth. “Shiv had such sharp insights…The script was written over a year and half. The project took over 3 years. And there was no money to be made. But we did it,” said Mishra.
Shiv’s early work happened with Vidhu Vinod Chopra. In an interview, Shiv said he was a student of English literature and just out of college when he assisted Vidhu Vinod on ‘Khamosh’ (1985). ‘Parinda’, a gritty gangster drama, was born out of a single visual image that Vinod had narrated to him: two orphaned boys on Bombay’s streets--the younger one scared and the elder one telling him not to worry. “It took us 2-3 years to write it,” Shiv said. He received the Filmfare award for best screenplay.
Shiv acted in at least 30 films and TV serials. Tragically, his teenage son, Jahaan succumbed to brain tumour in February. Theatre director Bhupendra Deshmukh, said the actor was suffering from multiple ailments since two years. “He was also busy attending to his son's illness, which made him set aside his own treatment."
Shiv’s funeral at the Amboli crematorium was attended by film personalities including actors Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar and Makarand Deshpande. He is survived by his actor wife Divya Jagdale.
Choosing vulnerable characters is embedded in my personality-Arjun Kapoor
8:07 AM
Harshada Rege (BOMBAY TIMES; September 29, 2021)
Right from his first film Ishaqzaade, Arjun Kapoor has always had the image of a macho hero attached to him. However, he tells us that characters with shades of vulnerability draw him. Be it his role in 2 States, that saw him playing a leading man, who is openly devastated post his breakup, or his role as a househusband in Ki & Ka, the actor hasn’t shied away from playing characters that don’t hide their emotions.
Ask Arjun whether these choices are a reflection of his thoughts and experiences derived from his personal life, and he says, “The selection of going against patriarchy or norms is one aspect of it, while the vulnerability is another aspect, and both are subconscious because both are somewhere embedded within my system and personality. However, at the end of the day, Ki & Ka was a known selection of something that you know will make people question certain things, while something like Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar was more about the friction between the social and economic divide, and then there’s a layer of patriarchy and various other aspects.”
The actor feels that his image is largely due to his physicality. “I have never really thought about the macho image because that’s inherently come to me from my first film, it’s not something I have worked towards,”
he says, adding, “For that, I think the physicality helps along with the kind of films I was offered earlier in my career.”
Be it Ishaqzaade, Gunday or Tevar, Arjun has played the typical Bollywood hero, who throws punches and knocks out a bunch of goons within no time. This perhaps was the sort of mainstream hero he had grown up watching in Hindi films. “I built a body of work where I look like I can play that macho, mainstream hero. But there’s also a film like 2 States, which is possibly a nice example of an introverted person who is resilient enough to stay with his mother, and at the same time, has a strong reaction when he has to man up and protect her.”
Reflecting on his choices so far, he adds, “It’s interesting to realise that I have been selecting these parts, but it’s not always been a very conscious endeavour…. barring Ki & Ka, in which the whole structure around it was to create shock value.”
Writers and directors are making family entertainer genre younger and cooler, without any cliches-Arjun Kapoor
8:00 AM
Fronting Netflix film Sardar Ka Grandson, Arjun Kapoor says family dramas are becoming cinematic yet realistic to appeal to the audience’s evolving taste
Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; May 14, 2021)
At the onset of our conversation, Arjun Kapoor reveals that he did Sardar Ka Grandson for his grandparents. The Netflix film revolves around Kapoor’s protagonist who arranges to have his grandmother’s ancestral home moved to Amritsar from Lahore after he is unable to take her to Pakistan.
“This film is my way of giving back to my grandparents, especially my granny who has just recovered from Covid. [It appealed to me] because I look at relationships from an emotional point of view; there is [no room for] practicality. For instance, my dadi [Nirmal Kapoor] has been asking me to come over for lunch. I keep explaining that it’s not safe, but she is driven by emotions and is not interested in the repercussions,” he shares.
The family drama, also featuring Neena Gupta and Rakul Preet Singh, may be a refreshing change of pace from the thrillers that have flooded the OTT platforms. Kapoor notes that the genre has taken a backseat in the past few years. “With new avenues opening up, many directors are exploring thrillers, horror and intense dramas. That said, Neena ji and my biggest hits have been family entertainers, Badhaai Ho [2018] and 2 States [2014]. Writers and directors are making the genre younger and cooler, and without any cliches. [You can’t give] the audience a fake, happy family. Viewers are intelligent, and you can’t lie to them. Our film is also cinematic in treatment because Amrik [his character] is trying to do the impossible. So, you have to make it cinematic yet believable.”
In having Lahore as one of the backdrops, the movie transcends borders to tell a human story. Asked about the strained relationship between India and Pakistan, he says, “We have to be humane and graceful. This film emphasises how humanity is above all else.”
I am closer to my mother. She’s my whole world. I can’t function without her-Sara Ali Khan
8:41 AM
Sara Ali Khan on inheriting her mother’s kind heart, her father’s sharp mind, and what she means to achieve as an actor
Ashwini Deshmukh (DNA; May 12, 2019)
When was the moment when you realised you wanted to be an actor?Honestly, there wasn’t any moment of epiphany as such. I remember singing and dancing to Bollywood music when I was around four or five. I used to mimic ads at home. When we went for admission in a school, mom said: Ab aap adab se, tameez se kuchh boliye. I went ahead and sang, Dama dam mast kalandar. Everyone understood that I was a crack child. As far as I can remember, this is what I always wanted to do.
Your parents separated when you were a kid. Do you carry any scars?
No.
How was it for you as a kid?
I was a kid, who understood that her mother and father were happier that way. I can’t change how they are when they’re together. But you must know the option. I could have been brought up in an extremely unhappy, unstable and toxic household. But today, I live with the world’s best mother in the most secure, happiest and healthiest space ever. People even used to ask me, ‘Don’t you miss the idea of a Sunday family lunch?’ Every day after the gym it’s like a girl’s day out for mom and me. Every night is like a pajama party. I love it.
And as far as my father is concerned, he’s never ever let me feel that we don’t live together. He’s always a phone call away. He’s always available for dinner, for coffee. So why would I feel like that? I have two happy homes with two happy parents. That’s a win-win situation as opposed to a massive loss for everyone.
Q. Who are you closer to – your mother or father?
Mom. She’s my whole world. I can’t function without her. From should I wear this, how did you like the trailer to is this boy good enough...? Her opinion matters in everything. I’m a homely mother’s girl. Mom and I are hysterical together. We’re just a riot at home. People have a blast looking at us.
Which of your father’s films do you like the most?
Hum Tum is a film that I enjoy. A touch of the urbane, suave and finesse… that’s what dad brought on the screen. Objectively, no actor since has been able to do that.
What about your mother Amrita Singh?
I didn’t watch mom’s films while growing up because she wasn’t shooting then. But recently, I’ve watched a lot of her films. I’ve watched her songs as well. She was never a dancer but if you see Mere Pyaar Ki Umar (Waris), she’s so cute. She’s as spontaneous as a human being too. From Betaab to 2 States, there’s a consistent spontaneity and innocence. That’s because she’s a child at heart. She’s the most genuine and most compassionate person. And she’s real. So much so that be it her anger or her irritation… it’s all out in the open.
The best you have inherited from your parents...
I have my father’s mind and my mother’s heart. That makes me a cool chick. What I don’t have, I will cultivate. If I can conduct myself with the intelligence, the worldliness and the knowledge that my father has, and if I can sleep the way mom sleeps, I’ll be good to go. She doesn’t have a single blob on her conscience. While I already have a couple of them. So I’ll have to work hard to be the way she is.
What do you have to say about your stepmom Kareena Kapoor Khan?I’ve been an avid Kareena Kapoor fan. So even today there’s an element of surprise that Poo from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (K3G) is my stepmother. People say I willed it to happen. I must have. After Sridevi, I’m a Kareena Kapoor fan. As far as our personal equation is concerned, I was clear from the beginning that anyone who makes my father happy — not specifically Kareena — makes me happy. Anyone he loves, I love.
I don’t need to know who that person is. It’s about my father. Having said that, Kareena and I became friends and have a healthy equation. It’s also easy for me to love and accept Kareena because I have a mom, who makes me feel everything’s fine. She got me ready for my father’s wedding with Kareena. So when you have a mother saying, ‘Yeh earrings mat peheno, doosri chandbali peheno’... and if that’s the vibe at home, then you’re comfortable enough to take anything on.
From 96 kilos to the svelte star you are…
Yes. I’m 55 kilos now. I don’t relate to that girl anymore. I look at my past pictures and go, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ I’m a foodie. So, it wasn’t a joke to lose weight.
I don’t think I would be as good as my mom, in the same roles-Sara Ali Khan
8:14 AM
Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; February 2, 2019)
Her screen presence and demeanour seems reminiscent of her mother Amrita and the roles she played back in the 80s. When we met Sara recently, we asked her if she’d like to reprise any of her mother’s roles, if the films were to be remade. She said, “I don’t think I would be as good as my mom, in the same roles. But, if I ever have a chance to revisit a role that she played, I would love to play her character in Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986). Her spontaneity and timing were brilliant. She was phenomenal in that role. I love the innocence that she brought to Betaab (1983), too. I also love the fact that she held her own when she worked recently in 2 States (2014). It was after a long gap that she was acting in a film, but her commitment and skill set were still evident; I guess… since an actor, always an actor.”
Meet these amazing writers who are also talented actors
8:12 AM
Hussain
Dalal, who hit pay dirt as the dialogue writer of Ayan Mukerji’s Yeh
Jawaani Hai Deewani, will be seen with Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao
in Mental Hai Kya
The parallel universes of writing and acting have rarely intersected in Bollywood. But now, a new breed of Hindi hyphenates — actors who write and writers who act, are coming into their own
Nishit Tiwari (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 23, 2018)
Talking to Hussain Dalal is like watching a stand-up routine. Every train of thought is punctuated with pauses and culminates in a punchline which, more often than not, lands where it is intended to. It wouldn’t surprise anyone who has been at the movies regularly for the last five years. Since Ayan Mukerji’s 2013 directorial, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani (YJHD), for which he wrote the dialogue, Hussain has worked in 25 films, some as an actor and others as a dialogue writer.
The 29-year-old Mazgaon boy — he describes himself and his co-writer brother Abbas as boys from streets nobody knows the names of — is an eminent member of Bollywood’s actor-writer community. While the two parallel universes have intersected more consistently through generations in Hollywood, its Bollywood journey has been woefully sporadic. The few people who come to mind are Guru Dutt, Kader Khan, Neena Gupta, Saurabh Shukla and Neeraj Vora.
However, the advent of storytelling platforms, predominantly streaming websites, and, as veteran actor-writer Saurabh Shukla puts it, the human tendency to seek newness, have given an opportunity to the Hindi hyphenates to come into their own.
Like most of his contemporaries, Hussain comes from a theatre background but he wears the duality of his aesthetic on his sleeve. “My default setting as a writer is commercial, while as an actor, my sensibilities match with art-house cinema,” he says. And the statement checks out, if you look at his work. After YJHD, he did Abhishek Varman’s directorial debut, 2 States (2014), and has reunited with Ayan on his third film, the Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt-starrer Brahmastra. Then there’s Varman’s Kalank, and Baahubali star Prabhas’s upcoming bilingual Saaho, for which he has co-written dialogues with his brother, among his upcoming projects. As an actor, he will be seen with Rajkummar Rao and Kangana Ranaut in Prakash Kovelamudi’s Mental Hai Kya, “a more story-oriented, fun film.”
“People ask me for the secret of my success but I am just trying not to be poor,” he confides, almost annoyed with the tone of the queries. “I am extremely scared of self-importance, as I have seen many talented people drown in that ocean,” he reasons. Elitism is another trigger word for him, but point out that YJHD was elitist too, and pat comes the reply, “But it was consumed by the non elite. The idea is to create content that doesn’t require 10 years of education and a degree to understand.”
Unlike Hussain, Ashrut Jain’s tryst with writing was set off by the stifling stillness of small town life in Jabalpur. “I was a good orator and used to write my own speeches. You won’t believe it, but even before Gadar came out and its dialogue, ‘Doodh maangoge toh kheer denge, Kashmir maangoge toh cheer denge,’ became famous, I had used it in an Independence Day speech,” he claims, and thus establishes early on that his patriotism fuels all his creative endeavours.
The actor in him took longer to surface. “That’s the difference exposure makes when you are born in a small town and not between Borivali and Bandra,” he notes. Ashrut discovered theatre in college and subsequently, his true calling. Afterwards, he took up a job in the casting department of Yash Raj Films. Brief turns in films like Goliyon Ki Raas Leela Ram-Leela and M S Dhoni - The Untold Story and a lead part in the 2016 dramedy, Sunshine Music Tours and Travels, followed in quick succession. But his most notable turns have come with Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk this July and Shree Narayan Singh’s Friday release, Batti Gul Meter Chalu.
He is now gearing up to make his first film as a writer, A Road Trip To Pakistan, in which he also plays the protagonist. “My first love is acting. I want the next generation to talk about me the way we talk about Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Ranbir Kapoor,” he asserts with wide-eyed optimism. What happens to writing, then? “I still write and have two scripts ready. Besides, I approach writing as either a creative outlet or a tool to become a better actor,” he says.
Amitosh Nagpal, a 33-year-old National School of Drama alumnus from Hisar, Haryana, tells people that he is ‘an actor who writes, not a writer who acts.’ “But I am writing more than I am acting,” he laughs.
After making a name for himself in Delhi theatre circles as an actor, he came to Mumbai in 2006 to do films. Instead, he ended up making ad jingles and wrote, directed and acted in plays before he landed a break as lyricist in Dibakar Banerjee’s National Award-winning dark comedy, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye (2008). He’d delivered two of the year’s biggest earworms, Superchor and Jugni, with the former even earning him a National Award nomination. “The songs were written in an hour or two,” he recalls, and is low-key dismissive of praise for producing something in a very short span of time. “It’s amusing when people give gyaan and cite rulebooks instead of just getting down to work,” he shrugs.
Brief roles in Dabangg, Aarakshan and Besharam, among others, haven’t done enough to satisfy the actor in him and Amitosh, whose most well-known work now is as an actor and translator of a widely-travelled and well regarded play called Piya Behrupiya, is ready to take matters into his own hands. “I have written the dialogue for Amole Gupte’s Saina Nehwal biopic and a film called Aadhar for Drishyam Films. Now, I have four scripts ready and I will play the lead in all of them,” he states.
Zeishan Quadri (left)
who shot to fame as the actor-writer of Gangs Of Wasseypur, had come to
Mumbai to become an actor. But Anurag Kashyap pointed out that he had
all the makings of a good writer. Soon enough, an eight-page concept
note turned into a 200-page ‘upanyas’ (novel), and subsequently led to
the two films, in which Zeishan, who is now 35, played the character of
Definite with quiet intensity.
“Going by the praise I received for my character, I figured I’d be inundated with acting offers. But the industry accepted me more as a writer,” he says, the reason being that “there are more actors in Maximum City than writers.” Quadri is now foraying into the romcom genre. “My stories usually start with a pistol but in this one, it will start with a rose,” he says. The film in question is one of the most anticipated films of next year, but Zeishan is tight-lipped about the details. On the acting front, he says that he has accepted a role in a new film to be directed by Ashwini Chaudhary, whose Dhoop he had loved.
At 47, Manu Rishi Chadha is of a different vintage, but his sensibilities are as contemporary as they come. Born and brought up in Chandni Chowk, he was raised by a Punjabi mother who hailed from Bihar and subscribed to the Hindi magazine, Dharma Yug, which was then edited by renowned author Dharamvir Bharti. “My subconscious mind was crammed with anecdotes, stories and the way they were narrated. My old Delhi upbringing taught me a lot without taking a fee,” he philosophises.
“When I arrived in Mumbai, I didn’t get dialogues to speak, I got them to write. It was fun because an actor lives a character but when I am writing dialogue, it is for an entire set of them,” Incidentally, Manurishi wrote the dialogue for Oye Lucky... and played Abhay Deol’s friend in the film....
More recently he wrote Nanu Ki Jaanu, and is making sure to get as much writing in as he can. “I act when I can, comfortably, as writing is priority. I feel a responsibility towards it. Besides, professional writing is all about meeting the deadline. I probably don’t get acting offers because I don’t have a good rapport with casting directors,” he chuckles, adding that in Mumbai, his friends Piyush Mishra and Deepak Dobriyal encouraged him to write.
Why is this tribe finding a footing in the Hindi film industry now? Saurabh Shukla, who featured in and served as a screenwriter on Satya (1999), Ram Gopal Varma’s most seminal work in the gangster-drama genre, among others, quotes French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. “The more things change, the more they stay the same. Every generation gets sad, happy, gets into fights and falls in love. The difference is, a young couple probably fights over the internet now. That said, our quest for newness has brought us to the realm of realism.”
Top:
Amitosh Nagpal, seen here with Ranbir Kapoor in Besharam, was the
dialogue writer for the Irrfan Khan-starrer, Hindi Medium; above:
Jabalpur boy Ashrut Jain, who featured in Goliyon Ki Raasleela
Ram-Leela, has written a film, A Road Trip To Pakistan, in which he also
plays the protagonist
I am very proud that I hail from the film fraternity. I am never apologetic about it-Arjun Kapoor
8:06 AM
Lasyapriya Sundaram (BOMBAY TIMES; July 24, 2017)
In a span of less than five
years, Arjun Kapoor has managed to make a mark in the film industry with
a variety of roles. Despite wanting to be a mainstream Hindi film hero,
he has not shied away from experimenting with niche films. As he says,
“When you have survived for four-five years and have a body of work,
you should only look towards making more inroads. You cannot be stuck in
personas of being massy, urban, classy, sophisticated or rustic.
These are tags that you can break.“ In a candid chat with BT, ahead of
the release of his upcoming film Mubarakan, the actor talks about
breaking stereo types, associating with directors who come from various
schools of thought, and how he'd never do a film that portrays women derogatorily. Excerpts...
When one looks at your repertoire of eight films in the past five years
and the way you have gone about choosing them, there seems to be a
method behind it. Would you say that this assumption is correct?
I auditioned for my first film and that's how I got it. After my first film, I was just happy that I had been accepted. I wanted to dabble in all genres, so I chose a Gunday, which was a larger-than-life film. I then chose to do 2 States because the conflict that the character went through appealed to me as it was quintessentially Indian in nature. I did a film like Aurangzeb as it was a non-song film, which at that time was attracting the audience to the multiplexes. I did a Finding Fanny because I love Homi Adajania's madness. Also, I wanted to share screen space with Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapur and learn from them. I didn't say yes to everything that came my way, but I did give my nod to exciting projects. When Ki & Ka came my way, I realised no boy will say yes to this role. The film's director, R Balki, narrated one line and said that he had not even thought about it. I jumped at it because I felt it was tailor-made for somebody with my physicality. I took a chance with the film and consciously worked towards it as it went against the grain and it also paid off. Half Girlfriend was exciting because the texture of the storytelling was again Indian. There are certain things that pique an actor's interest, and that's why you veer towards certain subjects.
While you are a creative person, you also understand how it is to produce a film. Do these two viewpoints - one artistic and the other commercial - create a conflict in your mind?
Well, what I do take into account is that, I don't want anybody losing money on my film. Even if I am experimenting and pushing the envelope, the film should be safeguarded, so that the risk taken doesn't cost somebody their job. Besides, no human being can predict how a film will perform at the box office. The one responsibility that every actor should shoulder is to secure the producer to whatever degree they can. With every film performing well at the box office, your saleability as an actor improves. That doesn't mean you are becoming a better actor. When I signed Finding Fanny, I knew it was an experimental film. I did it intentionally. It was a film made in English for a certain audience, it still earned close to Rs 30 crore at the box office. But when you compare it with 2 States, which released earlier, it won't make sense. If you look at it in isolation, my responsibility was to attract the audience into theatres and ensure that my presence didn't lead to the budget going overboard, and I think I achieved that. Being part of a film like that gave me creative satisfaction and it's one of my best-reviewed films as well. Commercial success of a film is different from making a film commercially viable.
After Anees Bazmee's Mubarakan, you have been roped in by Dibakar Banerjee for Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. How does an actor straddle these two diametrically opposite worlds that these filmmakers represent?
The excitement lies in the fact that I will be going from one world to another. That's exactly how every actor wants to be challenged. As an actor, I should have the ability to navigate these different spaces and be well-rounded. In a calendar year, I have Mohit Suri, Anees Bazmee and Dibakar Banerjee as filmmakers to work with, this only helps me showcase my range as a performer. I will be dedicating a month to prep up for Dibakar's film. The reasons for doing Mubarakan and Sandeep And Pinky Faraar are for its makers and the material they have to offer. I get to live vicariously through directors, who create diametrically opposite worlds; how lucky am I!
Tiger Shroff recently said that he is happy that he has a fan following among the audience in the B and C centres. Since films like 2 States and Ki & Ka have worked more than say a Tevar, do you fear that you will be tagged as a hero appealing to the multiplexes and not the masses? Like we often say, a metrosexual hero...
I don't think I have been tagged as a metrosexual hero. Half Girlfriend did well in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Indore. Gunday also did well in those regions. Ishaqzaade was a pan-India success at that point. It wasn't massy in its texture, but people from across the country saw it. I am not looking at whether the film will work in the A, B or C centres, and I think that reflects in my selection of films. I am always trying to meander my way into every household in India. I want to be a pan India hero. That's how you can survive. When you have survived for four or five years and have a body of work, you should only look towards making more inroads. You cannot be stuck in personas of being massy, urban, classy, sophisticated or rustic. These are tags that you can break.
While most actors are image conscious, you are conscious about not creating any image. So, in a way, you are not yet completely Bollywoodised...
I am very proud that I hail from the film fraternity. I am never apologetic about it. That doesn't mean that there aren't other facets to my personality. I am a well-rounded person, not just physically (laughs). I am a huge Bollywood fan, but that's not all that there is to me. There is enough time for various facets of my persona to come to the forefront.
From your interviews and your public persona, you come across as a feminist. If a film that you are offered portrays women derogatorily, would you voice your objection to it?
Films mirror society. When you read about a character, if it's not written with a particular agenda, say where they not purposely trying to malign the opposite sex and the journey brings about a catharsis, then it makes sense. Take for example my first film - if I was doing Zoya's role and reading about Parma, it's not my job to question the director about the boy's behaviour with the girl. He is doing that because that is what happens in society, sadly. The second half then goes on to say what the boy stands to lose for behaving the way he does with women. If a film is derogatory towards women, I won't affiliate myself with it. That is not the reality I would like to put out in the world.
But what's your response when people say that films and film stars influence the masses?
If we, as filmmakers and creative people, start becoming the do-gooders and the cleansers of society, it means that the infrastructure of our government has let us down drastically. Do you mean to say that we are the only cause for everything bad that happens in the country? If that is the case, then there is a fundamental flaw in the system.
I auditioned for my first film and that's how I got it. After my first film, I was just happy that I had been accepted. I wanted to dabble in all genres, so I chose a Gunday, which was a larger-than-life film. I then chose to do 2 States because the conflict that the character went through appealed to me as it was quintessentially Indian in nature. I did a film like Aurangzeb as it was a non-song film, which at that time was attracting the audience to the multiplexes. I did a Finding Fanny because I love Homi Adajania's madness. Also, I wanted to share screen space with Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapur and learn from them. I didn't say yes to everything that came my way, but I did give my nod to exciting projects. When Ki & Ka came my way, I realised no boy will say yes to this role. The film's director, R Balki, narrated one line and said that he had not even thought about it. I jumped at it because I felt it was tailor-made for somebody with my physicality. I took a chance with the film and consciously worked towards it as it went against the grain and it also paid off. Half Girlfriend was exciting because the texture of the storytelling was again Indian. There are certain things that pique an actor's interest, and that's why you veer towards certain subjects.
While you are a creative person, you also understand how it is to produce a film. Do these two viewpoints - one artistic and the other commercial - create a conflict in your mind?
Well, what I do take into account is that, I don't want anybody losing money on my film. Even if I am experimenting and pushing the envelope, the film should be safeguarded, so that the risk taken doesn't cost somebody their job. Besides, no human being can predict how a film will perform at the box office. The one responsibility that every actor should shoulder is to secure the producer to whatever degree they can. With every film performing well at the box office, your saleability as an actor improves. That doesn't mean you are becoming a better actor. When I signed Finding Fanny, I knew it was an experimental film. I did it intentionally. It was a film made in English for a certain audience, it still earned close to Rs 30 crore at the box office. But when you compare it with 2 States, which released earlier, it won't make sense. If you look at it in isolation, my responsibility was to attract the audience into theatres and ensure that my presence didn't lead to the budget going overboard, and I think I achieved that. Being part of a film like that gave me creative satisfaction and it's one of my best-reviewed films as well. Commercial success of a film is different from making a film commercially viable.
After Anees Bazmee's Mubarakan, you have been roped in by Dibakar Banerjee for Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. How does an actor straddle these two diametrically opposite worlds that these filmmakers represent?
The excitement lies in the fact that I will be going from one world to another. That's exactly how every actor wants to be challenged. As an actor, I should have the ability to navigate these different spaces and be well-rounded. In a calendar year, I have Mohit Suri, Anees Bazmee and Dibakar Banerjee as filmmakers to work with, this only helps me showcase my range as a performer. I will be dedicating a month to prep up for Dibakar's film. The reasons for doing Mubarakan and Sandeep And Pinky Faraar are for its makers and the material they have to offer. I get to live vicariously through directors, who create diametrically opposite worlds; how lucky am I!
Tiger Shroff recently said that he is happy that he has a fan following among the audience in the B and C centres. Since films like 2 States and Ki & Ka have worked more than say a Tevar, do you fear that you will be tagged as a hero appealing to the multiplexes and not the masses? Like we often say, a metrosexual hero...
I don't think I have been tagged as a metrosexual hero. Half Girlfriend did well in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Indore. Gunday also did well in those regions. Ishaqzaade was a pan-India success at that point. It wasn't massy in its texture, but people from across the country saw it. I am not looking at whether the film will work in the A, B or C centres, and I think that reflects in my selection of films. I am always trying to meander my way into every household in India. I want to be a pan India hero. That's how you can survive. When you have survived for four or five years and have a body of work, you should only look towards making more inroads. You cannot be stuck in personas of being massy, urban, classy, sophisticated or rustic. These are tags that you can break.
While most actors are image conscious, you are conscious about not creating any image. So, in a way, you are not yet completely Bollywoodised...
I am very proud that I hail from the film fraternity. I am never apologetic about it. That doesn't mean that there aren't other facets to my personality. I am a well-rounded person, not just physically (laughs). I am a huge Bollywood fan, but that's not all that there is to me. There is enough time for various facets of my persona to come to the forefront.
From your interviews and your public persona, you come across as a feminist. If a film that you are offered portrays women derogatorily, would you voice your objection to it?
Films mirror society. When you read about a character, if it's not written with a particular agenda, say where they not purposely trying to malign the opposite sex and the journey brings about a catharsis, then it makes sense. Take for example my first film - if I was doing Zoya's role and reading about Parma, it's not my job to question the director about the boy's behaviour with the girl. He is doing that because that is what happens in society, sadly. The second half then goes on to say what the boy stands to lose for behaving the way he does with women. If a film is derogatory towards women, I won't affiliate myself with it. That is not the reality I would like to put out in the world.
But what's your response when people say that films and film stars influence the masses?
If we, as filmmakers and creative people, start becoming the do-gooders and the cleansers of society, it means that the infrastructure of our government has let us down drastically. Do you mean to say that we are the only cause for everything bad that happens in the country? If that is the case, then there is a fundamental flaw in the system.
Chetan Bhagat has cracked the code, making him saleable as well as relatable-Arjun Kapoor
8:00 AM
Turning hero twice over with a film on Bhagat’s work, Arjun defends the much trolled writer, says he knows how to connect with average reader
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; May 10, 2017)
Ever since the IIM graduate began penning stories inspired by the middle-class, literature lovers have criticized the growth of Chetan Bhagat into a writer, whose arguably average books make for easy sales. That four of his books, the latest being the young adult-romance, Half Girlfriend, have been recreated for the big screen, is reason enough to cut him some slack, feels Arjun Kapoor, who headlines the upcoming adaptation.
“Chetan is an intelligent writer, one who knows how to tap into the mindset of Indian readers. People must acknowledge he has cracked the code, making him saleable as well as relatable,” Kapoor says, adding that the Indian tapestry is obsessed with education and romance, both of which usually find place in Bhagat’s novels. “Love happens in colleges, life hits you at that age too. So, anyone who hears the synopsis of a quintessential Chetan Bhagat novel will say this has happened to him or someone he knows. That’s where he wins and establishes a relationship with his fans,” Kapoor says about the writer, who was recently trolled on social media after reports of his book, Five Point Someone (2004) making it into the Delhi University syllabus, hit headlines.
Kapoor, it seems, fits the part of Bhagat’s urbane middle-class protagonist perfectly, given that this film marks his second outing in a Bhagat adaptation. The actor’s 2014 Indian drama, 2 States, featuring Alia Bhatt, was also recreated from Bhagat’s 2009 book by the same name. Kapoor admits he’s never read the novels, given that he goes “by the director’s vision”, but adds that multiple adaptations of his writing to film are testimony to the fact that Bhagat has done something right. “People want to see these characters take shape. His characters are everyday Joes, and I have been fortunate to play these roles. I bring fun and frivolity to the parts. He is a pan-India phenomenon, and I am happy to be his hero for the second time.”
From Kal Ho Naa Ho to 2 States, here's how Bollywood has been stereotyping communities
8:32 AM
Stereotyping of communities in Bollywood was more prevalent several decades ago than now
Lisa Antao (DNA; March 12, 2017)
Last month, the Supreme Court refused to pass any order on a writ petition seeking a ban on jokes on Sikhs by advocate Harvinder Choudhary. Choudhary argued that the Sikh community needed a “vigorous” law to protect themselves from being the butt of jokes and asked the court to prosecute websites that carry ‘Sardar jokes’. The court questioned, “Why should the Supreme Court issue guidelines on how people should conduct themselves when they hear jokes?” and also argued that even if any order is passed, it’s impossible to implement it, asking, “Even if we issue guidelines, who will control it?”
If counted as a crime, then Bollywood has long been guilty of portraying and in the process, propagating community stereotypes. Sardar jokes and the stereotype of the goofy dim-wit Sardarji are found aplenty in countless Bollywood movies. However, in Bollywood, it’s not only the Sikh community, but also many other communities, which have been stereotyped galore. For example, the loud over-the-top
Punjabis, all South Indians are shown as idli-dosa eating Madrasis, mad- hatter Parsis, alcohol-swigging and plunging neckline-wearing Catholics to serious, argumentative rasgolla-gulping Bengalis.
Stereotyping of communities in Bollywood was more prevalent several decades ago than now. However, Bollywood doesn’t seem to be entirely purged off it. In recent years, stereotyping of communities has been done in movies like Kal Ho Naa Ho (2013), Finding Fanny (2014), 2 States (2014), Shaandaar (2015). We won’t state the obvious by naming the communities, you can do the math! We asked trade experts for their take on the subject.
A purpose for stereotyping
Amul Vikas Mohan, Editor Super Cinema says that stereotypes in Bollywood have always been there and are not limited to communities. The reason for them being there is to cater to the larger Pan-India audiences, and that they work for the movies. He explains, “Stereotyping works and it’s the reason filmmakers connect with the masses. If it’s an inside joke, everyone won’t get it. It’s never the intention of a filmmaker to hurt a particular community. Certain jokes are made about mannerisms about a particular community. For example, besides being known to be cheap, Sindhis are also known to be loud, rich, flashy and wearing lots of gold. And in the movie Shandaar, director Vikas Bahl has shown this. It made sense because everyone knows this.”
No exclusive targeting
Film critic, Raja Sen adds that there is stereotyping of communities in Bollywood movies, there are various cultural biases that tilt towards the North, which are inevitable. “However, Bollywood being an equal opportunity offender, has stereotyped various communities be it Punjabis, Bengalis or South Indians across the country. It’s not like only a particular community is being targeted. It’s nothing personal and doesn’t need to be taken so seriously,” he says.
Taking offence at the drop of a hat
Amul points out that nowadays people get offended too easily. “If a villain from a movie belongs to a particular community, it doesn’t mean that everyone has begun hating that community. Targeting a particular community is not the motive here. If there aren’t stereotypical jokes in movies, it won’t be funny for the masses,” he says.
Sen says that stereotyping has been going on for a long time now in Bollywood. However, the bigger sin is making bad jokes in movies. Being unfunny is worse than being politically incorrect. “Today, people are taking offence for anything and everything and filing PILs. In that case, even we film critics should file PILs against filmmakers for making bad jokes, bad movies and incompetence. In this quest to please everyone, freedom of speech and creativity is being curbed,” he laments.
Purely for entertainment purposes
Akshaye Rathi, film exhibitor and distributor minces no words and opines that movies are made for entertainment and not for spreading social messages. “Let’s be absolutely clear that movies are not meant for education or to urge people to not to smoke, not to consume alcohol and so on. Movies are purely meant for entertainment. Take the example of displaying those ‘No Smoking’ health warnings before the screening of movies. Has anybody actually quit smoking because of those disclaimers?” he questions.
“Movies are a form of entertainment for the masses. It’s a route for escapism from reality. And let’s just leave it at that. Even these No Smoking health warnings is just tokenism. It has no impact on people. It’s unfair to microanalyse movies like that,” says Rathi. He goes on to cite examples of stereotyping of communities in movies like Kal Ho Naa Ho, of the Gujarati community and in Shandaar, of the Sindhi community in a light-hearted manner. He further adds, “In a comic scene, there’s a joke on a character and that character belongs to some community or the other. Nobody wishes to make a movie to target any community in a negative light. People need to take this with a pinch of salt! It’s entertainment after all!”
Need intelligent humour
Amul does acknowledge that filmmakers and the audience too, need to grow a sense of humour. “Having said that stereotyping does work in Bollywood, personally, I feel that it’s not the right way to go. Filmmakers today need to do away with stereotyping. They need to raise the standard of humour by cracking intelligent, smart, witty jokes,” he says, adding that today’s younger audience is into intelligent humour.
Arjun Kapoor to reunite with 2 States director Abhishek Varman for a big-budget drama
8:08 AM
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 25, 2016)
Arjun Kapoor’s dates diary is choc-a-bloc. The 31-year-old actor who has been shooting for Mohit Suri’s Half Girlfriend for most of this year, playing lover boy to Shraddha Kapoor recently kicked off Anees Bazmee’s Mubarakan in Chandigarh in which he will be seen in a double role as Karanveer Singh and Charanveer Singh with chachu Anil Kapoor in another lead role. Opposite him is Ileana D’Cruz. And now, buzz is, he is all set to score a hat-trick with a third big budget entertainer.
Mirror has learnt that Arjun has given his nod to buddy and 2 States director Abhishek Varman’s next, a slice-of-life drama with romance at its core, which had been in the scripting stage for the last two years.
The writer-director who started out as an assistant on Jodhaa Akbar, My Name is Khan and Student of the Year, made his directorial debut in 2014 with the film adaptation of the Chetan Bhagat novel, 2 States, which featured Arjun opposite Alia Bhatt.
“Abhishek’s mentor-producer, Karan Johar, has green-lit the project with some minor changes. It is a two-hero drama and casting for the parallel male lead and a leading lady is presently underway. The makers want young, established faces for all the parts,” reveals a source close to the development.
Reportedly, talks are on with KJo’s student, Varun Dhawan, who along with Arjun was one of the guests on the filmmaker’s popular chat show, Koffee With Karan, recently, for the role of the other hero.
Arjun’s spokesperson responded to our query with a “no comment”. However, in an earlier interview to Mirror (April 16) when asked if Tevar director Amit Sharma, Abhishek Varman and his filmmaker father Boney Kapoor were all working on scripts with only him in mind, Arjun had laughed, saying, “I am close friends with all the directors I have worked with and if something comes along, never say never!”
I'd like to host a show like Ellen DeGeneres-Chetan Bhagat
7:51 AM
Chetan Bhagat gears up to conquer new frontiers with a docu-reality series
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 19, 2016)
Chetan Bhagat quit his cushy
job at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong after his debut novel, Five Point
Someone (2004), made it to the bestseller lists. The IIM-A grad and
Delhi boy then moved to Mumbai to pursue writing full time.
By the time Bhagat's third book, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, hit the stands in 2008, the New York Times had hailed him as “the biggest selling English language novelist in India's history“, which has provided insurmountable fodder for debate between literary purists and his fans, the burgeoning Indian middle class for whom his novels have served as a rite of passage into the English language. By 2015, his books - six works of fiction and two anthologies of his columns - had sold over 15 million copies.
While the sun seems to be setting on his writing stint (his last novel, Half Girlfriend, didn't do too well), three of his earlier works were turned into celluloid money-spinners - Five Point Someone into 3 Idiots, Kai Po Che from 3 Mistakes of My Life and 2 States into a Rs 100-crore grosser. Today, a screen retelling of Half Girlfriend is under production with Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor.
Now, the 42-year-old author who made his TV debut as judge on Nach Baliye 7 last year, is taking it to the next level. August 1 will see him make his acting debut on TV with a docu-reality series, Real 2 States Couples. “I play a narrator, a sutradhar,“ he says. “A new TV channel called FYI TV18 was being launched when the makers approached me saying they'd like to do a reality show based on the 2 States theme. It is fascinating how my book's title has become a common term.“
This isn't the first time the 2009 book has inspired an idea. “There was a Sikh whose daughter was marrying a Keralite. Bang in the middle of the grand wedding stood a stall packed with copies of 2 States. The book had helped him come to terms with the alliance,“ Bhagat reveals. “It has been distributed to patients in recovery wards who're not allowed any form of entertainment. The light reading format, fun content makes it a great read,“ Bhagat adds proudly.
The show's first season traces India's present-day social landscape, where youngsters are constantly moving from small towns to cities for higher education and jobs. Universities are now breeding grounds for cross-cultural romances. “But we aren't facilitating such lovers, just documenting their relationships. The show is a social experiment which will have the couples living in each other's homes for three days,“ Bhagat informs.
Apart from acclimatising to a new household, the couples will be a part of a major family event, like a festival or a gathering. The first episode features a Tamil girl taking off to Punjab to spend three days with her beau's family. The series will feature five couples over 10 episodes of one hour. “I study the footage and make comments,“ says Bhagat of his work on the show, adding, “The idea is to add a perspective to the narrative and encourage inter-caste marriages. Marriage takes a lot of patience, empathy and hard work.“
Queries about whether it puts immense pressure on him to be the quintessential happily married man invoke laughter, followed by a “Yes!“ Bhagat who married his IIM-A batch mate Anusha Suryanarayanan in 1998, has drawn extensively from his real-life relationships for his writing. His columns on holy matrimony led him to the brand ambassadorship of popular website Shaadi.com. “The pressure is real. My own wedding was full of conflicts. Any marriage takes a lot of work. But I have to say, there is equal pressure on me for my next book, my next blockbuster film and my next career move,“ he sighs, adding that despite all that, his ambition knows no bounds. “I would love to host a talk show next, like Ellen DeGeneres. The kind of holistic, entertaining shows David Letterman or Conan O'Brien host,“ he shares.
But, he is quick to point out that he is buried neck-deep in the final edits of his upcoming book, written from the female perspective. “A grand launch is being planned this August. We've carried out a test reading with 15-20 people and the responses have been overwhelming. I am really excited,“ he signs off.
By the time Bhagat's third book, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, hit the stands in 2008, the New York Times had hailed him as “the biggest selling English language novelist in India's history“, which has provided insurmountable fodder for debate between literary purists and his fans, the burgeoning Indian middle class for whom his novels have served as a rite of passage into the English language. By 2015, his books - six works of fiction and two anthologies of his columns - had sold over 15 million copies.
While the sun seems to be setting on his writing stint (his last novel, Half Girlfriend, didn't do too well), three of his earlier works were turned into celluloid money-spinners - Five Point Someone into 3 Idiots, Kai Po Che from 3 Mistakes of My Life and 2 States into a Rs 100-crore grosser. Today, a screen retelling of Half Girlfriend is under production with Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor.
Now, the 42-year-old author who made his TV debut as judge on Nach Baliye 7 last year, is taking it to the next level. August 1 will see him make his acting debut on TV with a docu-reality series, Real 2 States Couples. “I play a narrator, a sutradhar,“ he says. “A new TV channel called FYI TV18 was being launched when the makers approached me saying they'd like to do a reality show based on the 2 States theme. It is fascinating how my book's title has become a common term.“
This isn't the first time the 2009 book has inspired an idea. “There was a Sikh whose daughter was marrying a Keralite. Bang in the middle of the grand wedding stood a stall packed with copies of 2 States. The book had helped him come to terms with the alliance,“ Bhagat reveals. “It has been distributed to patients in recovery wards who're not allowed any form of entertainment. The light reading format, fun content makes it a great read,“ Bhagat adds proudly.
The show's first season traces India's present-day social landscape, where youngsters are constantly moving from small towns to cities for higher education and jobs. Universities are now breeding grounds for cross-cultural romances. “But we aren't facilitating such lovers, just documenting their relationships. The show is a social experiment which will have the couples living in each other's homes for three days,“ Bhagat informs.
Apart from acclimatising to a new household, the couples will be a part of a major family event, like a festival or a gathering. The first episode features a Tamil girl taking off to Punjab to spend three days with her beau's family. The series will feature five couples over 10 episodes of one hour. “I study the footage and make comments,“ says Bhagat of his work on the show, adding, “The idea is to add a perspective to the narrative and encourage inter-caste marriages. Marriage takes a lot of patience, empathy and hard work.“
Queries about whether it puts immense pressure on him to be the quintessential happily married man invoke laughter, followed by a “Yes!“ Bhagat who married his IIM-A batch mate Anusha Suryanarayanan in 1998, has drawn extensively from his real-life relationships for his writing. His columns on holy matrimony led him to the brand ambassadorship of popular website Shaadi.com. “The pressure is real. My own wedding was full of conflicts. Any marriage takes a lot of work. But I have to say, there is equal pressure on me for my next book, my next blockbuster film and my next career move,“ he sighs, adding that despite all that, his ambition knows no bounds. “I would love to host a talk show next, like Ellen DeGeneres. The kind of holistic, entertaining shows David Letterman or Conan O'Brien host,“ he shares.
But, he is quick to point out that he is buried neck-deep in the final edits of his upcoming book, written from the female perspective. “A grand launch is being planned this August. We've carried out a test reading with 15-20 people and the responses have been overwhelming. I am really excited,“ he signs off.
I will ensure I have a Diwali 2017 release too-Karan Johar
8:06 AM
On the eve of his b’day, Karan Johar spoke to us about his party with close friends in the English capital and how things have drastically changed for him in his 40s
Shubha Shetty Saha (MID-DAY; May 25, 2016)
Karan Johar brought in his 44th birthday party last night in London in the company of his close friends including Shah Rukh Khan, Gauri Khan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra.
Speaking to hitlist from London, hours before the big celebrations, KJo says “I was in Austria and then came to London. Birthdays are occasions when I make sure that I am away from work. I am lucky some of my friends are here; I will have about 15-20 of them attending the party.”
The filmmaker says he has already made a birthday resolution for this year. “The day after my 45th birthday party, I would be on the sets of my film; a film that I will direct,” he adds. He goes on to elaborate, “Writing is my primary passion. In my 40s, my fear of failure has reduced considerably. Often, we give ourselves too much importance and start worrying. A film is a film; sometimes you go right, sometimes you may not. I have decided to go ahead with what I want, without worrying about the results. This year, I have a Diwali release (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil) and I will ensure I have a Diwali 2017 release too — a film directed by me. Most of us filmmakers have such a sense of self importance that we think the world is waiting for our films with bated breath. That’s so not true — unless you are the director of Star Wars. The whole universe is not waiting for us to break out on celluloid,” he says with a loud laughter.
Continuing with the explanation, he adds, “We are such masters of delusion. With social media and so much else happening around us, it’s time we realised that we are just one important but tiny dot in the whole scheme of things. My 40s have made me much more open about my personal headspace and where I stand. I want to do so much more now than when I was 34. In my 30s, I was bogged down by work. At 32, I lost my father and had to carry his legacy emotionally and professionally forward. Through my 30s, I conformed to societal norms, but now, I am at a point where I am doing things that make me happier and give me personal equity. I am living for myself, not doing what people expect of me. I am not afraid of conflicts or people’s opinions; only what my mother says matters to me.”
He says he is not limiting his banner to ‘just our brand’. “I am excited about various collaborations that we are doing now. I have no issues going to people and asking to collaborate if I think they are interesting, like I did with 2 States and then Baahubali. I think we are beyond that time,” he says.
Coming back to his big day, he says he plans to hit stores in London and shop to his heart’s content. “We think if we eat chocolate cake on our birthday, calories won’t count. Or if we shop a lot, it won’t make a dent to our bank account. That’s the only day I think you deserve whatever you buy and I am going to make the most of it,” he says with a chuckle.
I am here to stay-Arjun Kapoor
8:00 AM
Arjun Kapoor on growing in confidence over a span of four years and making his mark
Sarita A Tanwar (DNA; May 23, 2016)
Remember that scene from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, when Rachel
writes a letter to Ross? It’s 18 pages. Front and back! The transcript
of my interview with Arjun Kapoor, is 19 pages long. And we talked for
under an hour. Maybe I went armed with a lot of questions. Maybe we
digressed, a lot. However, unlike Rachel, Arjun hadn’t rambled on. Most
actors mumble two words in reply to a question, Arjun, refreshingly,
can talk, and sense at that. Perhaps it has something to do with coming
from a film family, he understands the business a lot. He understands
himself even better. He knows he has to work harder than his
contemporaries because he is not a chocolate hero. He has had to work
harder than others in the sense because he didn’t want to be boxed in a
very short period of time. They said he looked like a rogue, he couldn’t
dance, he was too big... He didn’t say anything back. He just worked.
He has juggled small films, unknown directors, an English film and a TV
show host alongwith his big budget commercial dramas. All that is
(365x4) days. He has managed to change the perception about him in very
short period of time. Today, any director big or small will approach him
for any kind of role. Because he has proved he is versatile. Read on as
he talks about his journey and more...
How many years has it been now? Six?
What since I became an actor?
Yes.
Four! What six!? You have turned me into an old hag. Six is too much. It’s been four years, exactly four years. You probably feel I am around because I have been around maybe a year before the shooting, the announcement had come that I have signed the YRF film.
Found your comfort zone? In terms of professional work?
Yes. Yes, I definitely feel I have... A lot depends on your audience feedback also. You know, in the beginning, you’re still finding yourself. You are wondering if the films are working because the films are good or even because you have that acceptance from the audiences. Are they coming to see you in a particular film or they’re coming to see a film and you happen to be in it? You need to solve that jigsaw puzzle on your own and connect with your audience when you interact with the audience. When you travel, you to get a sense that nahi yaar, you don’t know what it is, but they are liking something about you and you need to embrace that. You don’t need to fight it, you don’t need to doubt yourself, you need to say okay to whatever it is. Out of 1 billion people, there are about 10-12 people who get this opportunity and I happen to be one of them. There is plausible enough reason to believe the audience likes you. So don’t let any negativity or any confusion hold you back from that. So the first two three years go in figuring that out. I won’t say actors kaan ke kacche hote hai but there are lot of influencing factors when you are starting out, there are lot of people saying a lot of things. So you have to kind of take a step back, put things into perspective.
And actors live in a bubble, without interacting with the audience directly, so they don’t know their perspective.
Correct. I think the one good part about promoting films is that you get to meet audiences. That’s one advantage of going out to promote a film across the country. You get to see the country and the audience and you get to see what they react to. So like the audience in a Delhi reacts to a different film of yours that they’ve liked. The UP audience will react more to a Gunday. Gujarat, you’ll have people talking about 2 States. Every state has a different reaction...so you get a sense. So yes, you need to take a step back in the first one or two years, figure yourself out, enjoy the attention and then kind of... Now, I feel chaar saal is a good enough time for me to accept I’m here to stay. I think also the last film Ki & Ka doing the kind of business it did, kind of consolidated the fact that the audience is interested to watch me as an actor which is important. In the bigger picture, producers are putting their money on me. The kind of film it was, the number that it started with on the first day, was a pretty nice feeling as an actor to do a niche multiplex film and have Rs 7 crore-plus on the first day.
You’ve done so many different kinds of films. What is your comfort space in terms of genre?
I don’t have a comfort space in terms of genre. That’s one thing that no actor should ever find. You should be comfortable being an actor but you should not be comfortable ki main uss type ya iss type ki kar sakta hoon. I want to discover it all...
But for actors some things comes easier.. Be it, action, drama...
I am dying to do a comedy but nobody is offering me one. So I don’t know. Everybody said action is Arjun’s go-to, but my biggest success is 2 States, which has no action. I loved doing Ki & Ka and 2 States and Finding Fanny. Everybody says I’m intense but my sense of humour actually is one of my biggest assets. If you interact with me, you will find that it is one of my saving graces of my personality. I can make a person laugh or smile and cut the tension in the room. It’s just that I come across as a very serious person on face value. As an actor I can be funny, I can be charming, I can be serious, I have all the facets, it’s all about how a director sees me. And I never want to feel that this is my groove and I will stick to it. The fact that I did Ki & Ka because I wanted to again re-emphasises the fact that I don’t live in a groove. Even Half Girlfriend for that matter.
Two choices of yours Ki & Ka as well as Finding Fanny I don’t see any of the boys of your generation taking up a film like that.
Thank you.
What gives you the confidence to say yes to a film like that? Isn’t there that insecurity that will this be accepted?
You don’t think so deeply about not being accepted. You kind of believe that if the film is good, it will be accepted but yes thank you for appreciating the different choices that I’ve made. Finding Fanny was more about, yaar I think not enough ensemble films are made, not enough quirky experimental films are made with enough face value to get attention. My reason for doing Finding Fanny was if I don’t do this now when will I do this? Take chances, I was still young, I didn’t have to think about the consequences. Because the bigger you get, the harder it gets to experiment...
I would say that it’s easier to experiment when you are bigger because by then you know you have your fan base. So intially actors should aim for really safe films.
What is safe today? Ishaqzaade was not a safe debut and it did well. My first film kind of made me realise pushing the envelope is more exciting for the audience today than sticking to conventional films. My reason for doing Ki & Ka was it seemed like a risky film. I liked the fact that we were taking a risk, in terms of that a mainstream commercial Hindi film hero who is so macho in his perception is going to play a home maker. I think the film worked because Balki cast me in that role. I think if it was anybody else from my contemporaries it would have seemed a bit generic. It added a fun twist to it was to see this big burly guy who is like a giant taking care of the house and taking care of a woman and cooking and cleaning and playing house husband. I found that visual exciting. I found that story very relatable, so I went with the emotion of the film.
Having directors like Balki and Homi must have the big driving factor, right?
100 per cent. I think if it was somebody else coming with an idea about a me playing a home maker, I wouldn’t have done it. And of course to do a Finding Fanny you need somebody as out there as Homi. He was the main reason for me to jump in because you got to work with all kinds of people. You cannot always do films for the monetary reasons. You cannot always do it for box-office especially when you are starting out because you really don’t know what’s going to work. Like I said, you know once you keep working then you become even more serious about “no, I don’t want to do this because this will become my positioning’. When I was starting out, I was doing Finding Fanny along with Gunday and 2 States, so if you look at it as a spectrum they were three very different films. I didn’t know which one is going to work and which one isn’t.
A lot of your contemporaries in the same position are not experimenting. Where do you get the inspiration?
The thing is, I never wanted to be an actor. I am not competitive to a point where I want to outdo others and I don’t want to get into that rat race. I want to be a part of this turnaround that has happened in these last two to three years. I feel very proud that we have all kind of survived that wave and we are doing well. There is no sense of out positioning each other because we all have enough going on for us. We have allowed more films to be made, we have allowed more directors to dream, We have allowed more writers to make choices of writing extreme stuff like a Finding Fanny or a Badlapur.
You have always said that ‘I’m limited in a way the roles that I can do because people see me in a certain way because of the way I look.’ But you’ve played the most diverse characters. I don’t see any of your contemporaries doing a Fanny, or a Ki & Ka.
I think that’s primarily because I have made those choices before them so you’ll always think of me first.
I don’t see it.
I do believe I can do action better than all my contemporaries also because I just have the backdrop now with the kind of films that I have done so I’ll always be convincing in an action film. I do see Ranveer being able to do action well. I think we all are finding our grooves. What I said was that people see me in certain kind of roles. I don’t see myself that way. Not even the audience does. It’s the people making films, who are casting you, who always see you in one dimension or in a stereotypical or a way that. ‘oh iski pichli action chali toh...’ I am sure even Varun faces that, when he’s offered those teenybopper films all the time. I’m sure even Tiger would want to do other kind of genres but he’ll always be the go-to guy for masala action films. He’ll also have to find his groove. That’s a constant battle for young actors. But you should take chances I think that’s what I have learnt by doing a Ki & Ka, 2 States and Finding Fanny or even by doing television. You just have to keep working, you never know what’s going to work and you don’t have answers. Like Gunday was supposed to be the sure shot film eventually 2 States did better than Gunday.
How much of divide is there in the kind of films the older guys are doing and the kind of films that younger heroes are doing?
I think there is a divide because the appetite of the audience is a certain way for certain actors. I do believe that they have been moulded into a certain pattern. Because the audience diktat says that when they go to see films of Khans, Akshay, Ajay, even a Hrithik for that matter, he has to play the star. So all of them have to play to their audience, their fan base — and their fan bases are huge — so they have to appease them before anybody else, so their choices are dictated by...log kyu aate hai paisa kharch karne? There is a lot of money riding on them, they would love to take risks I’m sure.
Like Shah Rukh did with Fan.
Which I think is commendable. I think they all take risks. I do believe even a Bajrangi was a risk in that sense. It was not a typical action Eid kind of film. It was an emotional tale of a man and a child. Even for like Aamir doing a Talaash, and Ajay did a Drishyam. Nobody speaks about those films because they all think about Action Jackson first unfortunately. So they all attempt different films but we tend to remember the bigger, flashier, commercial, pot boilers more. So I think the senior stars don’t get their due enough. Look at Akshay, he has done Airlift, and Baby last year.
They are limited because their audiences don’t want to see that.
But the audience has seen them in different films. But there are certain limitations. They cannot make song less films with superstars. You can’t suddenly go dry. The films have to have enough to appease the masses also because the masses do come out to watch them. So they will have that extra song maybe they’ll have that one action sequence or little more dialogue baazi but the material is still getting more relevant and more young.
None of the Gen Next actors don’t really fit into the kind of films that the older guys do...
Correct. We don’t.
Except for Tiger, you all have the multiplex audience on your side and Tiger has — because of the kind of films that the single screen audience.
Correct. He has done two films that played to the gallery. Yes, I have done my Tevar and Gunday. I have enjoyed that side of performing also, and I will never shy away from them. But yes, to the multiplex audience, our films have appealed more to their sensibility. Which I think will change over a course of the next couple of years I might do a massy film and I might discover that even I want to do more of that.
I think those kind of films are dying.
Yes, because now they have become like junk food. Once every six months you get a film like that you’ll enjoy it. Earlier it used to be staple and the multiplex film used to do be once in a while you saw an interesting unique film. Now the interesting unique films are every month.
Multiplex audiences is still essentially the cities right? While single screens are everywhere. So which audience would you rather woo?
Yes, it’s still the cities. But the money in cities is much more. Today four cities can allow you to do Rs 70-80 crores. Between Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, little bit of Gujarat. Look at Neerja, Kapoor and Sons, Ki & Ka these are multiplex dominated areas where these films have done very good numbers. At the same time, a single screen film like Baaghi can do Rs 70 crores because it’s appealing to the rest of the country. So the numbers on both sides. But single screen films are becoming little obsolete now because the audience is now watching Hollywood films all the time. They have the internet and they are aware of what’s happening around the world. Now filmmakers know they are making films for an intelligent mindset and they want to see everything new. They want to see a Neerja and an Airlift and a Kapoor and Sons to discover a family drama of a different kind rather than the song dance routine one. They want to see a macho hero play a typically female oriented character and pull it off. These are the kinds of things that have worked along with a Baaghi, I’m not denying that. But I think Baaghi worked because it is the exception this year. I think because it came at the right time also. There is a certain enjoyment about watching a commercial masala film once in a while. So I think if he is the go-to guy for that then I am very happy for Tiger, I think everybody should have their groove and everybody should appeal to all kind of audiences. I have always believed that an actor should be able to appeal to every audience member eventually. You cannot be like ki yaar main multiplex...
Yes, but sometimes audience slots you. They decide what they like you in best.
I have been very lucky. I have a lot of decent goodwill in the mass thought process also. When I have interacted with people the younger boys, the men... they have enjoyed Gunday, Ishaqzaade, and Tevar. So I feel maybe I just need a correct film to kind of reconnect with them and take it to that level. Sometimes you just need the correct film. You might have the potency, you might have a connect, but to really see the volume of numbers you need a correct film also. But it’s going to be I think once a year you’ll see a Baaghi doing well, once or twice a year you’ll see that kind of a film doing well more than the Neerja’s and Kapoor and Sons and all.
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