Abhay Deol is a difficult actor to even begin to decipher. You wonder what's going on behind those huge dark glasses, when you can't see his eyes, and then beyond that in the cocoon of his mind, it perhaps adds to his mystery. Maybe that's why he's been branded a quirky actor sometimes, and a thinking actor at other times. And a very un-Deol-like Deol at most others. Maybe we, on this side of those huge dark glasses, are plain confused.
He was recently in Bangalore to promote the Dibakar Banerjee-directed political thriller “Shanghai”. One moment he's all wry mock humour (you're hoping that's what it is!) with co-actor Kalki Koechlin at the press meet, and in a while, during the interview he's very seriously telling you why he was glad his first two films flopped.
Nephew of Dharmendra, cousin of Sunny and Bobby Deol, son of film producer Ajit Deol — such filmi roots should also come with bagfuls of air and tonnes of baggage.
Despite being from a “film family” Abhay Deol studied acting in New York. Wasn't it all in his blood? “Even if you are from a film family, you will be put through acting classes. All of us will train for a profession,” he protests. “In fact you have to work doubly hard to shake off any preconceptions. People also won't let you break out from an image. For me the advantage was that I'd seen fame, I'd seen the rise and fall of actors intimately enough not to be taken in by the glitz.”
In a career barely spanning seven years, since he was launched in the family-produced romantic “Socha Na Tha”, he's been talked of as one of the most promising young actors. Doing the oddball-est of movies most of the time, he's also thrown into the mix a more “commercial” film like “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” or “Aisha” here and there.
The string of critically acclaimed movies is impressive — “Dev D”, “Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!”, “Manorama Six Feet Under”, “Ek Chalis Ki Last Local”… “I've always wanted to go the non-formula way,” says Ahbay.
But then why start off with a family production; a love story? “When I started out, who was I to say what I wanted to do? That would have sounded arrogant. But when both ‘Socha Na Tha' and ‘Ahista Ahista' didn't work, I was happy.” Happy because he was proven right.
So did he want to bring about change in the predictable Hindi film pattern? “I knew I was going to do things that I believed in, and if it caused any change in industry that is great!” he says, all modest. “I'm here making movies I want to. It's never easy…and it should never be that way.” He even ambitiously set up his production house Forbidden Films and announced a film “Basra” but it never really took off. “I've always been a behind-the-scenes producer, getting finance, getting ideas, or getting actors for the films I've worked in,” is how he explains the move. And why the dramatic name? “Every thing I was doing was forbidden — at every stage people kept asking me ‘how can you do such a film?' or play such a character…”
Is he the perfectionist, the method actor? “I don't think I'm a perfectionist. But if you mean is there a method in my acting, yes, there's definitely a method in place. But that method changes from film to film, character to character, and director to director. I don't work too hard to learn my character. The director and me build the personality and develop the character as we go along…directors I've worked with like it that way.”
Talking of characters, Abhay plays Krishnan, being described a “south Indian IAS officer” embroiled in corruption and bureaucracy. The south has become weary of its depiction in Hindi films, with Shah Rukh Khan's Shekhar Subramaniam in “Ra One” spilling over with “aiyyo”s making us quite enraged.
Abhay laughs when asked what kind of stereotypes of the south Indian “Shanghai” has to offer, or offers to break. “I can't answer that. You have to watch the film for yourself to decide if there is any stereotyping. I don't think there is. And no, I haven't said ‘aiyyo' even once in the film. We tried to keep it subtle, and it shows up only in the pronunciation… and hope people get that. One of the Tamilians on our crew came up to me and said I sound like her father, so I guess it must be ok…”
Hindi films have always had stereotypical characters, he adds.
It's not just the Madrasi but the jolly Punjabi and the mad Bawa (Parsi) and so on. “Anyway it's not about a north Indian-south Indian battle, isn't it? Not for me!”
“Shanghai”, produced by PVR Cinemas, will release on June 8.
