Vijay Varma: The Prince of Darkness

In Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink (2016), it is Angad Bedi who plays the lead antagonist, but the eye keeps going to a nervy young man in the corner of the car, convulsing with wicked pleasure at the prospect of hurting a young woman. That was 2016, and a woman in the audience wanted to hurt Vijay Varma after watching it. “He was so disgusting as Ankit that we knew everyone will hate him. Andar se ghatiya jisko kahte haye (Someone who is intrin­sically disgusting). I told him people will want to slap you. It happened and that was his greatest reward,” says Roy Chowdhury.

It was also the role that got him noticed in Mumbai cinema’s crowded landscape where newcomers, even those with acting diplomas from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), are plenty in number. Since then, the Hyderabad-born Varma has become the prince of darkness, moving from the car thief-cum-drug peddler Moeen of Gully Boy (2019) to the abusive husband of Darlings (2022) to the sly serial killer of Dahaad to a twisted boyfriend in Sujoy Ghosh’s segment in Netflix’s Lust Stories 2 this year. The only bright spot was a sub inspector investigating an acid attack case in a small town in Uttar Pradesh in JioCinema’s Kaalkoot, but even here he was not above manipulation in his relationships.

What does inhabiting such dark places do to Varma’s psyche, especially when it involves cruelty towards wom­en? “Exactly what it does to a psycholo­gist,” says Varma, 37. “I try to understand and find reasons and motives of com­plex minds. I’m not becoming any of my characters. I’m just deciphering them. That for me is a lot of fun,” he adds.

Building each anti-hero is something he enjoys. “Language is crucial. I try to sound like I belong to the milieu. I work on the gait, posture and walk. Sometimes just changing small things make the most impact. And if I’m lucky I find/or stumble upon someone who has traits similar to the character I’m working on. But most of the time, it’s just imagination.”

It’s imagination that took him to Pune from Hyderabad where his father runs a handicrafts business. Varma, who is a Marwari, had to run away from home to study at FTII. His father, a great lover of Bruce Lee movies, was never in favour of his son becoming an actor, and was reconciled to it only after he read a review of his performance in Rangrezz (2013) and saw a photo of his son with Amitabh Bachchan on the sets of Pink in a local newspaper. “He’s happy for me,” says Varma, “but in his heart he still wants me to live with him as just his son. Business toh badhana hai (we have to grow the business). Some dads are built differently.”

At FTII, he was in the same class as Jaideep Ahlawat, Rajkummar Rao and Sunny Hinduja. They are all still support­ive of each other. He says he didn’t need to make friends in the industry because of his deep bonding with some of his classmates. “Sometimes we do a particu­lar film or series just for the pleasure of hanging out with each other,” he says.

The years at FTII were seminal for him, especially because the acting course had been closed for 26 years and was revived only in 2004. Varma’s batch was among the first to graduate, in 2008. “When I went to FTII, I had heard some big names who were our alumni— Jaya Bhaduri, Mithun Chakraborty, Shabana Azmi, Shatrughan Sinha, Naseer saab (Naseeruddin Shah), Om Puri. It was our collective dream to bring back that glory to the institute. When my batchmates started getting work we celebrated every little victory of each other. And now we are at a place where we feel that those glorious days are back and it’s very heartening. We are everywhere, on every screen,” he adds.

Marquee directors cannot get enough of him. Sujoy Ghosh, who is directing him again in his adaptation of The Devotion of Suspect X, says he brings a lot of happiness to a film. Filmmaking is a gruelling process, he says, and “you need Vijay who is constantly standing by you and the film. He is someone who takes accountability for his character and takes it above what is written on paper. More importantly he is always there. I love that about him.”

Tigmanshu Dhulia, who cast him in two films, Raag Desh, (2017) and Yaara (2020) says: “Yaara was difficult because all the actors in the film had to age and to play that is not easy. Vijay worked on the characters really well. I knew he was special.”

He delights in unleashing his de­mons, whether it is in the science fiction comedy Ok Comput­er (2021) or the quiet newbie sub inspector in Kaalkoot. “I feel more when there are inner conflicts in a character than external happenings. My character in Kaalkoot carried the heaviest emotional baggage and I was constantly overwhelmed and broke down several times during filming,” he says, laughing at the idea that the role could be consid­ered lighter than his usual personas.

After knocking about in the indus­try since his first big role in Chittagong (2012) as revolutionary Jhunku Roy, Varma has finally become a star, with all the perks: a actor-girlfriend in Tamannaah Bhatia, a nifty sense of style that makes him a red carpet favourite with his unique jackets, cool sneakers and collectible watches, and an easy attitude that endears him to Mumbai’s eternally hungry paparazzi. Yet, acting is his first love therefore it doesn’t feel like hard work. “Stardom comes as a by-product of doing well and making the right choices. I choose choices over noises,” he adds.

And if people mistake the screen him for the real person, he enjoys that too. “I love the idea that people are clueless about how I am in real life,” he says. “It has happened to me many times that people have started believing that I must be this person I have portrayed onscreen. They’ve either been scared of me post Darlings and Dahaad or wanted to offer me a joint post Gully Boy. So, for a lot of people I’m many things and I nev­er bothered doing anything about it.”

It helps him to disappear into the people he plays on screen. And create monsters next-door like Darlings’ Hamza, who becomes a feral beast once he drinks, stuck in a dead-end job and marriage to a woman with ambition and a voice, or Dahaad’s seemingly mild-mannered teach­er who lures women to their deaths.

So what’s next for Varma? “There’s so much happening currently—I couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds,” he says. There’s Sujoy Ghosh’s film, which is an adapta­tion of The Devotion of Suspect X, Homi Adajania’s Murder Mubarak and the much, much awaited Mirzapur 3! The best part, he adds, is all of these will show­case different sides of himself as an actor.

His fearlessness on screen makes him go to places internally that others might be wary of. “When I do a film like Darlings, I do so because I am one with the intention of the film. I believe in what the film is saying and, therefore, I want to put myself on the line for that message to get across,” he says.

It does. With an innocent smile and a vicious flourish.

cinemaDahaadDarlingsGully BoyVijay Varma