Showing posts with label Vikas Kumar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vikas Kumar. Show all posts
I never used dialect coaching to find roles-Vikas Kumar
10:40 AM
Vikas Kumar, who is also a popular dialect coach in the industry, says that it was his acting prowess that got him the series, Aarya
Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; February 13, 2023)
He has portrayed a cop one too many times, but Vikas Kumar has always managed to play them differently. As the actor steps into the role of ACP Khan again for the second part of Aarya season 3, he credits the show’s writing for making his character “more human and emotional”. In conversation with mid-day, Kumar looks back on his acting journey, how filmmaker Ram Madhvani humanized his character in the Disney+ Hotstar show and how the part is closer to his real-life persona. Edited excerpts from the interview.
How did both your professions, dialect coach and acting, come together?
I came to Mumbai looking for work as an actor. Whoever had seen me act thought that my voice and dialogue delivery are my forte. One day, my roommate Honey Trehan, who is now a director, was sitting with an assistant casting director [working on a] Hollywood film being shot in India. They wanted somebody to ensure that the Indian actors speak British English well. So, he recommended me to the line producer. While I waited for the right acting projects to come my way, I had to do something to stay busy and earn money. Dialect coaching gave me a chance to be part of the film industry. Now, I have a company called Strictly Speaking, where my wife is also a trainer.
Did dialect coaching pave the way for your acting career?
Never. People on the outside think that this would help me build contacts, but I’ve never looked at it as a way of finding roles. Dialogue coaching has allowed me to choose my acting assignments and do only what I really want to do.
It took a long time to build your career since Powder and Khotey Sikkey.
My journey has been slow yet steady. Things looked promising after Khotey Sikkey because [I was] made to believe that there will be regular work and Khotey Sikkey was supposed to have a second season. But these shows by YRF were way ahead of their time. If something like that had happened today, it would’ve been very [successful].
While Aarya’s first season was liked, the second edition received mixed reviews. Your take?
The first season had its own novelty; it was fresh for the viewers and the actors to explore. In season two or three, the fear is that you can get complacent. You have to challenge yourself and see how you can do things differently within the character’s parameters. Ram also does workshops to push you. Some people liked season two more than season one; we’ve got all kinds of reactions.
You’ve played a cop many times. How do you make the roles distinct?
I’ve refused many cop roles because they didn’t excite me or didn’t have a proper journey character-wise. The first [factor is] the writing. That’s why you take up a show like Aarya because it’s not your regular cop. Plus, Ram was directing it and it was Sushmita Sen’s comeback. Ram and the other directors [wanted me] to make ACP Khan more human and emotional, not someone who carries his authority on his shoulders. He carries enough authority when he is conducting raids, but he is also human enough to understand what Aarya as a woman may be going through. His relationship track made it a wholesome character.
How has ACP Khan evolved in season three?
Now, he comes with even more angst and drive to catch Aarya and the Russians, and get rid of the entire drug racket. This is probably the closest to how I am in real life, and Ram wanted it that way. Similarly, Sushmita is exactly like Aarya with her kids. Ram tries to capture the real you. With Ram, there is no action and cut; you go live your scene and he will capture it. Being yourself is the toughest thing to do.
It, suddenly, is a little too much to take in, says Vikas Kumar on Sonsi’s Oscar nomination
7:53 AM
Titas Chowdhury (HINDUSTAN TIMES; December 2, 2021)
Vikas Kumar has carved a niche for himself as a cop with shows like Powder, Khotey Sikkey, CID and the Sushmita Sen-starrer Aarya, which won him critical acclaim. Having tried his hand as a dialogue coach in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), Fitoor (2016) and Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, he has now turned producer with a short Sonsi.
The film, based on an eight-year-old girl and her dream etched shadow bird, is currently running for the Oscars. Recently, it won the award for best cinematography at the 67th National Awards.
Sharing his excitement, Kumar says, “It feels great. It’s very rewarding. It’s not like I’m hunting for this kind of acclaim. When we work, we go about it with utmost sincerity. I don’t know where it’s headed but I believe that if you work hard, these are the rewards it pays. Once such acclaim comes your way, it encourages to work as hard or harder in your next.”
Aarya had been nominated in the Best Drama Series category at the International Emmy Awards, 2021. “It, suddenly, is a little too much to take in. I’ve been around and I’ve done some work. I’m being noticed a little more now post Aarya,” says an overwhelmed Kumar.
So, what does all this recognition mean to him? “If the global recognition opens more doors for me, I would love to be a part of interesting stories being told anywhere. That’s our job and that’s what excites me,” he says.
Being noticed at international film festivals and award functions has exposed him to the global audience. Asked if Hollywood is on the cards, the Dhamaka actor says, “If anyone approaches me with something exciting, what could be better than that? Any interesting collaboration is great. If an exciting Hollywood project comes my way, then why not?”
We showcased the role of gay cop in Aarya 2 with sensitivity-Vikas Kumar
7:31 AM
Aarya 2 actor Vikas Kumar on showcasing his homosexual cop act with deft
Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; November 26, 2021)
Vikas Kumar is set to reprise his role of a cop in Aarya 2, the trailer of which dropped online yesterday. Discussing showcasing a gay cop on screen, he says, “It is refreshing to see such a character, and that is why I took it up. The character [has been written] as one who belongs to a minority group, and has [different] sexual [preferences]. Season one was about my occupation, but season two will also highlight other factors.”
As ACP Khan, a cop in the narcotics department who is in search of a pen-drive that is linked to a drug racket, Kumar shares screen space with Sushmita Sen in the Ram Madhvani-helmed venture. It will air on Disney+ Hotstar.
Talking about the portrayal of homosexual characters in Hindi films, he says, “It puts me off when I see [some portrayals], and that’s why we decided to showcase it differently. I hope Aarya sets a benchmark on that front. In a bid to create sensationalism, and add shock value, [filmmakers] make such roles caricaturish. But, in Aarya, we treated his relationship, like a relationship. We showcased the role with sensitivity. Some dialogues were improvised by me.”
Kumar acknowledges the fear of being easily typecast in the industry, but says it doesn’t keep him from green-lighting roles that he can showcase with deft. “I am open to exploring the different kind of roles [I am offered]. As actors, we always try to [avoid] being typecast. As long as I can treat the part with sensitivity, I am happy to be part of it.”
Body language consultants, sprint trainers: Authenticity in Bollywood creates new jobs
8:33 AM
Sharmila Ganesan-Ram | TNN (THE TIMES OF INDIA; March 9, 2014)
Everything in the frame is blue. The sky. The desert. Alia Bhatt. She is running towards you in tears as if you could save her from her kidnappers. Her feet seem to be on autopilot and with each second, her breath is getting heavier and her lips drier. She trips, falls, gets up and runs some more. Finally, her knees buckle, she collapses on the parched earth and breaks down. Then, she gets up and runs away from you.
To prepare for such scenes, Bhatt was made to thrash around angrily on a cold, concrete floor several times in her hotel room in Ajmer. Holding a man’s hands she would repeatedly dip her head to the floor and straighten up. “These (exercises) allow instinct rather than intellect to dictate physical actions,” says 46-year-old Ashley Lobo, who is also responsible for the way Bhatt’s Delhi-based character in Highway tears her chapatis, works her hips and squats on the ground in the film. Lobo’s name appears in the film credits under the title ‘Body Language Consultant’.
This designation, along with other credits such as ‘dialogue coach’ and ‘sprint trainer’, is the result of Bollywood’s new marriage with realism. To make their stories appear more authentic, filmmakers are not only giving characters last names and doing away with lip-synced songs but also enlisting professional help for verbal and non-verbal intricacies. How to do an authentic job of strumming a guitar, for instance, or saluting smartly when one is playing an Army officer.
Imtiaz Ali, director of Highway, wanted to convey the protagonist’s transition from a guarded city girl to a wild, uninhibited character using mostly body language and few dialogues. “Since this was a big change, I needed an expert,” adds Ali, who entrusted the job to Lobo, a choreographer in his previous films.
Besides body language, even the clothes actors wear add meaning. It’s no longer startling when costume designers say they borrowed from locals or doused the actor’s hair in Brylcreem because the character demanded it. “Everything in the frame must have meaning,” says filmmaker Alankrita Shrivastava of Turning 30 fame, who came away impressed with the attention to detail in films such as The Lunchbox and Dedh Ishqiya. “Bollywood is moving toward a situation where we know exactly where each character comes from,” says Shrivastava, who is now writing a film set in small-town India.
Since small India is where many cinematic characters now come from, a dialect coach has become a regular. Actor Nikhil Dwivedi had one teach him crude Avadhi for his role as a gangster from UP in the upcoming film Tamanchey. Dwivedi, who once approached a cop to master his salute, feels the constant comparisons to Hollywood are making such training inevitable. “Even Al Pacino had a dialogue coach teach him Cuban for the film Scarface,” says Dwivedi. “It has to look believable.”
Actor Vikas Kumar, who has worked as a dialogue coach on films such as Gulaal to Aurangzeb, is from Bihar. His services are sought for films that are infused with regional flavours — Bihari, Bhojpuri, Dakhani or Bhopali. Though he is now comfortable with most dialects, there are times when “I call up friends and interact with locals to pick up certain phrases,” says Kumar. He discovered, for instance, that in Bhopal, “acidity” is often pronounced as “STD”. That nugget made its way into Arshad Warsi’s lines in the film Ishqiya.
Interestingly, it is chiefly Hindi dialogue coaching that is seeing a spurt in demand, says Kumar, who has even opened a centre called Strictly Speaking along with other accent trainers. “Many young city-bred hopefuls today are more comfortable with English. Besides, more foreign actors and NRIs are entering Hindi cinema,” says Kumar, who has invented various teaching tactics to make his English-savvy students sound more desi — pressing their tongue down with a spoon to unroll the ‘r’, for instance, or tutoring them to pronounce the nasal sound in words like “main”.
But authenticity is not always a priority in Hindi films. Indian Railway coach Melwyn Crasto, who was actor Farhan Akhtar’s sprint coach for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (BMB), thought that the actors in Chak De India could have done with seven to eight months of pre-shoot training. Crasto had spent a year and a half imparting athletic and altitude training to Akhtar.
All the training in the world can’t guarantee a great performance. “An actor can still be terrible if he does not reveal the inner life of the character,” says actor Tillotama Shome of ‘Shanghai’ fame. “I would be more unforgiving of a person whose performance was insipid than a person whose performance was honest but the accent flawed.”
Everything in the frame is blue. The sky. The desert. Alia Bhatt. She is running towards you in tears as if you could save her from her kidnappers. Her feet seem to be on autopilot and with each second, her breath is getting heavier and her lips drier. She trips, falls, gets up and runs some more. Finally, her knees buckle, she collapses on the parched earth and breaks down. Then, she gets up and runs away from you.
To prepare for such scenes, Bhatt was made to thrash around angrily on a cold, concrete floor several times in her hotel room in Ajmer. Holding a man’s hands she would repeatedly dip her head to the floor and straighten up. “These (exercises) allow instinct rather than intellect to dictate physical actions,” says 46-year-old Ashley Lobo, who is also responsible for the way Bhatt’s Delhi-based character in Highway tears her chapatis, works her hips and squats on the ground in the film. Lobo’s name appears in the film credits under the title ‘Body Language Consultant’.
This designation, along with other credits such as ‘dialogue coach’ and ‘sprint trainer’, is the result of Bollywood’s new marriage with realism. To make their stories appear more authentic, filmmakers are not only giving characters last names and doing away with lip-synced songs but also enlisting professional help for verbal and non-verbal intricacies. How to do an authentic job of strumming a guitar, for instance, or saluting smartly when one is playing an Army officer.
Imtiaz Ali, director of Highway, wanted to convey the protagonist’s transition from a guarded city girl to a wild, uninhibited character using mostly body language and few dialogues. “Since this was a big change, I needed an expert,” adds Ali, who entrusted the job to Lobo, a choreographer in his previous films.
Besides body language, even the clothes actors wear add meaning. It’s no longer startling when costume designers say they borrowed from locals or doused the actor’s hair in Brylcreem because the character demanded it. “Everything in the frame must have meaning,” says filmmaker Alankrita Shrivastava of Turning 30 fame, who came away impressed with the attention to detail in films such as The Lunchbox and Dedh Ishqiya. “Bollywood is moving toward a situation where we know exactly where each character comes from,” says Shrivastava, who is now writing a film set in small-town India.
Since small India is where many cinematic characters now come from, a dialect coach has become a regular. Actor Nikhil Dwivedi had one teach him crude Avadhi for his role as a gangster from UP in the upcoming film Tamanchey. Dwivedi, who once approached a cop to master his salute, feels the constant comparisons to Hollywood are making such training inevitable. “Even Al Pacino had a dialogue coach teach him Cuban for the film Scarface,” says Dwivedi. “It has to look believable.”
Actor Vikas Kumar, who has worked as a dialogue coach on films such as Gulaal to Aurangzeb, is from Bihar. His services are sought for films that are infused with regional flavours — Bihari, Bhojpuri, Dakhani or Bhopali. Though he is now comfortable with most dialects, there are times when “I call up friends and interact with locals to pick up certain phrases,” says Kumar. He discovered, for instance, that in Bhopal, “acidity” is often pronounced as “STD”. That nugget made its way into Arshad Warsi’s lines in the film Ishqiya.
Interestingly, it is chiefly Hindi dialogue coaching that is seeing a spurt in demand, says Kumar, who has even opened a centre called Strictly Speaking along with other accent trainers. “Many young city-bred hopefuls today are more comfortable with English. Besides, more foreign actors and NRIs are entering Hindi cinema,” says Kumar, who has invented various teaching tactics to make his English-savvy students sound more desi — pressing their tongue down with a spoon to unroll the ‘r’, for instance, or tutoring them to pronounce the nasal sound in words like “main”.
But authenticity is not always a priority in Hindi films. Indian Railway coach Melwyn Crasto, who was actor Farhan Akhtar’s sprint coach for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (BMB), thought that the actors in Chak De India could have done with seven to eight months of pre-shoot training. Crasto had spent a year and a half imparting athletic and altitude training to Akhtar.
All the training in the world can’t guarantee a great performance. “An actor can still be terrible if he does not reveal the inner life of the character,” says actor Tillotama Shome of ‘Shanghai’ fame. “I would be more unforgiving of a person whose performance was insipid than a person whose performance was honest but the accent flawed.”
THE
WORD GURU: Dialogue coach Vikas Kumar (above, on the sets of ‘Ishqiya’
with the cast) has invented various teaching tactics to make his
English-savvy students sound more desi — for instance, by pressing their
tongue down with a spoon to unroll the ‘r’
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