On Playing a Monster

How do you reconcile yourself to playing a monster? I asked Nawazuddin Siddiqui this recently, while talking about Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016). He plays a psychopath who loves killing people. “There is no justification or cover for his violence. He inflicts it because it’s a way of life for him, just like eating or sleeping,” he says. It was a role that disturbed Siddiqui, but that is precisely why he wanted to do it. And also, as he says, he cannot say no to Anurag Kashyap, who had directed the film. It was the same with Siddiqui’s character Liak in Badlapur (2015), a man so awful that one really roots for the violence inflicted on him. But for Siddiqui, Ayyan Mani, the character he plays in Serious Men (2020), is the greater monster by far. “Here is a man who exploits his own child because he wants to move up in life, because he thinks he is the ticket to generational mobility. For me, playing him was very difficult,” says the actor. Many of the actor’s own experiences and sentiments end up becoming part of his characters, whether it was the famous “permission lena chahiye” scene in the star-making Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) or Jatil Yadav’s insecurity about his skin colour in Raat Akeli Hai (2020). The character he felt closest to was the iconic Manto in Nandita Das’ film of the same name in 2018. “His views on art, on religion, on society, on relationships resonate with me,” says Siddiqui, who read him first at the National School of Drama where he was a student. “Playing different characters doesn’t mean one has to play different professions,” he says. “You can play the same kind of character in many different ways.” Indeed, witness his temperamental police officer in Kahaani (2012), the measured officer in Raees (2017), and in Raat Akeli Hai, the last being the most “hero-like”. “Playing heroes doesn’t interest me,” says Siddiqui. “Our movie heroes are so good, so perfect, so full of wonderful attributes. It’s boring.” But much of the performance is determined by the kind of cinema it is. “In mainstream cinema, everything is heightened, and there is no conversation, just dialogue-baazi. You say your lines and move on, don’t wait for the co-actor’s reaction,” he adds. Once you accept it, you become comfortable in that space. “But that is not how realistic cinema functions,” he points out.

Striking a Madhur Note

They say women can’t bring people to seats in theatres, which is why women-oriented movies don’t get a big-screen release. But Tabu had seen the commercial potential of such cinema in 2001 when she took a chance on Chandni Bar by director Madhur Bhandarkar, who was coming off the failure of his debut film Trishakti (1999). Bhandarkar, who went on to make several commercially and critically successful women-driven movies such as Page 3 (2005), Fashion (2008) and Heroine (2012), recalls that Tabu heard just the first half of Chandni Bar’s story and committed to the film. “She slashed her price and took a back-end deal instead, something which even male actors were not doing too often then,” he says. The movie, made on the tiny budget of ₹1.5 crore, went on to play a key role in reshaping Tabu’s career. It was a leap of faith for Kangana Ranaut too when she took the second lead in Fashion. “She had had hits such as Gangster (2006) and Woh Lamhe (2006) before that but she had taken a break. She was very apprehensive about the length of the role, but I assured her the length wouldn’t matter,” says Bhandarkar. The result: it put Ranaut back on the map and won her a National Award for Best Supporting Actress. The movie itself came about when Bhandarkar met Priyanka Chopra on the sidelines of the International Film Festival of Goa and talked about doing a movie together. The women of Veere Di Wedding or Thank You for Coming or Crew have to thank Bhandarkar for giving them professions and for giving them dimensions they didn’t always have.

Scene and Heard

Indians seem to be quite the flavour of the season when it comes to lead roles in rom coms this year. Netflix series One Day was a big success with Ambika Mod playing Emma Morley across different time periods. Now comes news of Hulu’s Dinosaur, a comedy series where a man, naturally Indian, played by Danny Ashok, comes between two sisters. And Charithra Chandran, last seen in Bridgerton, is the object of attention from two boys in Prime Video’s How to Date Billy Walsh.

About The Author

Kaveree Bamzai

Kaveree Bamzai is an author and a contributing writer with Open

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