So much is fake. So many stories are fake. So many people playing them are fake. The threshold is so, so low. Yes, changes are happening, but at a very superficial level. They are capturing performances at a physical level. Of the upcoming crop in mainstream Bollywood though, there is some hope. There is the amazing Kangana Ranaut, for instance. And mark my words: Ranbir Kapoor will perform wonders.
In NSD, which, as I say all the time, formed my foundation, I had about twenty batchmates. We had the same teachers, we studied the same books but all of us are in different places in life today. It took me a few years to learn that you have to leave NSD behind at some point and get involved in real life, in real emotions, in real people. This is not about a particular role. It is about an actor’s existence. The books you read, the people you hang out with, all of these deeply impact your acting. Eventually, you have to build your own style, your own gait, and all of these factors contribute to whether you are aware of it or not.
Of course, then there is the whole part of detaching from the character you have worked so bloody hard to get into so that you can rejuvenate yourself for a bit and then get into the next role. It’s like discarding old robes so that you can make room to wear new ones. For instance, for Manjhi: The Mountain Man I was stuck in the character of Dashrath Manjhi, well until one and a half months after the shooting had ended.
I have often been accused of playing a plethora of morbid roles. The word they use most often is ‘dark’. I fail to understand what they mean. Darkness is an integral part of life. When did light and dark become separate? They exist together in the universe, they are symbiotic. Where there are stars, there is night. Where there is sun, there are shadows. When people say Badlapur was dark or that Raman Raghav 2.0 was unreal, I am bewildered because they are not unreal. There are people just as ghoulish, actually even more so, walking all over the streets of India. And they have shades of innocence in them too, just like Liak in Badlapur.
There is no darkness left in my life, I have poured all the darkness, all the frustrations inside me into the dark characters I played. So in real life if somebody abuses me or slaps me, I would not give a damn. God has given everybody their share of everything, including angst. People like Anurag and me, we have taken out all of our angst on celluloid. So we are empty. Our profession is an enormous blessing that way. Because most others don’t have venues to channel their negativity. Their share of angst and negativity festers inside them until the pus bursts out in scary ways in real life: by cheating, duping people, usurping positions . . . the list is endless. My favourite thing about cinema is this: in real life, you have to often tell a load of white lies to cover stuff up, to be in the good books of those you care about. We show in real life only what we want to show and that too in the exact quantity that we want to reveal. So artifice has crept into people’s lives almost everywhere. But not in front of this amazing gadget we call the camera. During those few seconds when you are in front of it, just for those few seconds, you show nothing but sheer naked honesty. It is a boon from heaven for actors, only they can do this. So whichever character you get to play, you can speak truth through them, the truth you may not be able to say in real life.
Many people say I did that in the character of Kick, which was a so-called commercial film. But if I lived that character in real life, I would be exactly like I portrayed him on screen. You can be honest in the so-called commercial cinema too—it’s not like you can be honest only in more realistic cinema. Every role is sacred. The form could be anything, the actor’s duty is to play every genre with total honesty.
And honesty is not limited to acting. There is a boy called Sonu who comes to clean my office. He scrutinizes every corner, every little nook for a speck of dirt. He does his work with 100 per cent sincerity, with utmost honesty. This is a deep trait in every being. Everyone wants to express truth through whatever medium, even if it is not a creative medium like acting or music or writing. Through sheer honesty, one can excel in even a mechanical or seemingly mundane task. This truth, this excellence, this expression is something every human being yearns for.
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These days I have forayed more into what many call ‘commercial cinema’, working with traditional superstars of Bollywood. A star is different from an actor. When people come to watch the film of, say, a Shah Rukh Khan or a Salman Khan, they are there to see Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan. They are not there to watch an actor. They are there to watch a star and all the things
