Oscar-nominated actor is in the city for recce and research on his directorial debut, a revenge-thriller set in modern-day India
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 22, 2020)

After Christopher Nolan, Robert Pattinson, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Game of Thrones stars Emilia Clarke and Rose Leslie and American actress Andie MacDowell, another Hollywood actor, Dev Patel, is in India. According to a source, the 29-year-old actor is in Mumbai on a work trip for about 10 days. “Dev is keeping a low profile as he is here for recce and research for his directorial debut, the tentatively-titled Monkey Man. He is also meeting producers to explore potential collaborations,” informed the source.

Co-written with Paul Angunawela and John Collee, Monkey Man is reportedly a revenge-thriller set in modern-day India and deals with mythology. According to Variety, it revolves around the Kid (played by Dev), who emerges from prison to enter a world marred by “corporate greed and eroding spiritual values”.

Mithun Chakraborty’s youngest son, Namashi, who makes his Bollywood debut with Rajkumar Santoshi’s Bad Boy, ran into the Oscar-nominated actor at a suburban restaurant over the weekend. “I was having dinner with Amrin (Qureshi, co-star) and stylist Priyanka Mishra when I spotted Dev. As I am a fan, I went up to him and asked for a picture. He graciously obliged. When I told him that I am an actor as well and that my film is releasing soon, he wished me luck,” Namashi said.

In 2016, Dev filmed Hotel Mumbai near a SoBo college. The film released in India in November 2019 and also featured Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi and Anupam Kher. It revolved around the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

The debutant actor on doing comedy, facing rejection at auditions and bagging a film with a little help from his disco dancer father, Mithun
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 3, 2019)

Even before he can introduce himself, the uncanny resemblance gives Namashi away — he is celebrated actor Mithun Chakraborty’s son. Having recently wrapped up the shoot for his debut feature, Rajkumar Santoshi’s Bad Boy, the 27-year-old is not one to discount how his lineage has helped him bag a break in Bollywood.

“Let’s be honest, Rajkumar Santoshi wouldn’t have even met me if I wasn’t Mithun Chakraborty’s son,” says the actor, who has been paired with Amrin Qureshi, also a debutante, in the “romcom about a bindaas boy who falls for a girl who has an entirely different personality”.

Ask him why he has started acting so late and he says it’s because of his father. “When I was 22, I really wanted to work in films, but my father felt that I looked far too young and immature, and that I will get easily typecast,” he says. At the time, he was offered to play a part in a multi-starrer, which his father convinced him to turn down. “That film was a blockbuster, but the actor who played the role I was offered hasn’t got any work since...”

Growing up in Ooty, where incidentally, Mithun has “shot more films than in Mumbai”, and where he runs a string of hotels today, Namashi always felt at one with the film industry. “I literally grew up on the sets, and almost every actor who has shot in Ooty, from Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar to Govinda, would come and stay with us,” he says. Sometimes, encounters with stars, especially those who played leading villains back in the day, would be rather traumatic. “When I would see Shakti Kapoor or Gulshan Grover, for instance, I would run in the opposite direction, and accuse them of doing horrible things to my dad,” he says. “That’s how obsessed I was with films.”

Unlike Namashi, who was a regular fixture at his dad’s film sets, his disco dancer daddy, he says, only dropped in a few times on his film shoot. “We were shooting at HMT grounds in Bengaluru at 5 am on the first day. I was very nervous. Raj-ji [Rajkumar Santoshi] is a tough guy who screams and shouts if you don’t get things right. Then suddenly, I saw a familiar face smiling from a distance,” he says. “My dad had come to surprise me. I was like ‘ek aur teacher aa gaya’. But he just said that I was doing exceedingly well for a newcomer.”

Like many who harbour dreams of making it in films, Namashi signed up for Kishore Namit Kapoor’s classes, followed by Alok Ulfat’s intensive workshops, to sharpen his acting skills. Once he felt he was ready to test the waters, he joined Improv Comedy Mumbai, a collective of comics, and took to performing at live gigs.

“Doing comedy in the age of trolling was not easy. But I wanted to be independent and try and make it without using my dad’s name,” he says. This, however, turned into a futile pursuit, despite “joining every casting WhatsApp group and doing the Aram Nagar rounds”.

“The first time I auditioned, it was for a chocolate commercial, and I cracked it. But as destiny would have it, my maternal uncle passed away the following day, so I had to opt out and be with my mother,” he says. “Casting agents post requirements for actors like ‘young, fair complexion, curly hair and tall’, and when I’d turn up for auditions, there would be 40 people who would fit that description perfectly. Sometimes, if my name was lower in the list, I wouldn’t even get a chance to audition as most casting agents tend to pick someone from the first 20 people they screen.”

Being a Chakraborty naturally comes with its share of misgivings. “Anyone who meets me wants to know if I can dance and act like my dad,” he says. “Well, I’ve got a break in films without an audition thanks to him. Now, my performance will decide whether I deserve the second film.”

Johny Lever on working with both Mithun and his son
Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 19, 2019)

After working together in the 2001 drama Lajja, Johny Lever and Rajkumar Santoshi are reuniting for Bad Boy, which marks the acting debut of Mithun Chakraborty’s son Namashi and producer Sajid Qureshi’s daughter Amrin. The marathon schedule in Ooty is still going on but the veteran comedian has completed his portions in a week’s time. “I play Amrin’s relative from a Bengali family and have a hilarious face-off with her love interest Namashi which will bring the house down with laughter,” Johny promises, saying that Namashi, whom he has known since his childhood, is a talented actor. “He was born for the movies and I’m not saying this because he is Mithun Chakraborty’s son. He as a learnt a lot from his father and done several acting courses.”

Johny and Mithun worked together in several films. The one he recalls is Yugandhar (right) in which both played dacoits. “I could not get a shot right despite 12 retakes so Mithun stopped the shoot and requested the director to leave me alone for some time and advised me not to overthink the scene and in the course of a conversation, diverted my attention. When I returned after a break, it was okayed in one shot,” he recounts.

Next up: The reincarnation comedy Housefull 4 in which he teams up with daughter Jamie for the first time. “Even though I don’t have any scenes with her, our roles are connected. Mine has a surprise twist, we shot mainly in Jaisalmer. The sets were amazing,” he exults. 

Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 4, 2019)

Mirror had earlier reported (May 23) that Mithun Chakraborty’s son, Namashi, and filmmaker Sajid Qureshi’s daughter, Amrin, are making their acting debut in the Rajkumar Santoshi-directorial BadBoy. The duo, who quietly started shooting for the romcom in Bengaluru on May 18, had a visitor on the sets recently.

Mithun, who returned to the public eye with an appearance on a reality show amid speculation around his health, arrived alone and stayed in the background not wanting to inconvenience the makers. He hung around for two days watching the shooting. “He didn’t make any suggestions to Raj ji (director) but shared some acting tips with Namashi and Amrin based on his experiences,” Sajid informs.

The 67-year-old actor couldn’t keep himself away from the action for long. “There’s a montage scene in which Amrin boards the bus with Namashi chasing after it. We did around 15-20 takes, but the bus driver always missed the spot. That’s when Mithunda decided to drive the bus himself and got things right in just two shots,” shares the elated producer quick to add that he’s not in the frame nor is he playing a cameo. “He will be in the US for the next two months for another shoot.”

The film also introduces producer Sajid Qureshi’s daughter Amrin
Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 23, 2019)

On May 18, Rajkumar Santoshi quietly kicked off his directorial comeback, BadBoy, in Bangalore. The romcom will launch two new faces, actor Mithun Chakraborty’s youngest son Namashi and producer Sajid Qureshi’s daughter Amrin.

“He had several rounds of auditions before deciding on them and thereafter put both of them through some acting workshops,” informs Qureshi, going on to reveal that the film will be on the lines of Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D’cruz’s Phata Poster Nikhla Hero and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif as “youngsters connect with this genre”.

The film will be shot in Mumbai and Bangalore over the next 65 days. A non-stop schedule in Bangalore will be followed by a brief one in Mumbai. They also plan to shoot a few songs abroad.

Prod him on Mithun’s reactions and Qureshi says the actor was in the US when Namashi came on board. “But on his return, he met us and discussed the script. Any father would be pleased to have his child launched by Rajkumar Santoshi, it means the film is in safe hands,” asserts the filmmaker, saying they have tentatively planned it for a Diwali release. Housefull 4 has also blocked the same date.

Mithun Chakraborty’s youngest son, Namashi, clarifies that his father is in the last leg of therapy for back pain
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 8, 2019)

A few months ago, Mithun Chakraborty’s absence from the public eye raised concerns that he may be battling a life-threatening illness. However, the veteran actor’s youngest son Namashi tells Mirror that the only thing ailing his father is back pain. “Whenever dad travels to Los Angeles, people assume he is sick. He is currently in Kerala undergoing therapy for his back and will be in Mumbai closer to the release date of The Tashkent Files (his next film). 90 per cent of the pain is gone, and he is now waiting to return to work,” Namashi informs.

The 26-year-old aspiring actor goes on to add that he was born in Mumbai, but the family moved to Ooty when he was two. “The only source of entertainment there were television and dad’s movie trials. There was just one theatre in the area and he would book the entire 9 pm show. I grew up watching his films and wanting to be a hero like him but as a ’90s kid, I was obsessed with Shah Rukh Khan and Govinda too,” Namashi says, adding that he returned to Mumbai in 2006, two years before his elder brother Mahaakshay’s debut with the Raj N Sippy-directed Jimmy.

In 2012, he started losing weight as part of his prep for an acting career. “I also joined Kishore Namit Kapoor and Alok Ulfat’s acting class. A two-year dance training at Shiamak Davar’s boosted my confidence. I have done improv comedy in theatre and assisted director VK Prakash on Ishqedaariyan,” he reveals.

Recent reports had claimed that he has a role in Anubhav Sinha’s Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Article 15. Namashi denies it, saying, “I had gone to meet Anubhav sir and (filmmaker) Ratnaa (Sinha) ma’am for a lead role in a different project. It has nothing to do with Article 15.”

While his sister, Dishani, has already featured in two short films and is also now looking for a feature-length break, Namashi asserts that the only tip his father gave him was to never depend on him for work and not be disheartened by rejections. “Main Aaram Nagar (Andheri) mein bahut bhatka hoon, but I love it,” he smiles, adding that he reaches out to casting directors, and filmmakers through his struggling and established friends for auditions.