Back under the spotlight

Kunal Kapoor talks about playing a warrior in Jayaraj’s ambitious project, “Veeram”

September 04, 2016 02:18 pm | Updated September 22, 2016 05:23 pm IST

Kunal Kapoor

Kunal Kapoor

On the 400th death anniversary of William Shakespeare, Jayaraj, the National Award-winning Malayalam filmmaker is giving tribute to the Bard of Avon in his own style. He has come up with a historical drama called Veeram based on “Macbeth” and takes inspiration from the story of Chandu Chekaver, an infamous warrior of the 13th Century North Malabar. The fascinating part of the film is casting Kunal Kapoor as Chandu Chekaver, the protagonist. The film opened the ongoing BRICS Film Festival.

It is a sort of comeback for Kunal, who almost fizzled out after a powerful performance in Rang De Basanti .

Excerpts:

On his method

The method was really intense. This is a character which is very dark so you have to go into places, I think As actors, we all have reference points of something that happened in our real life, which is how we sort of build a character. I built a relationship with the character that I play. I had to explore dark spaces within me. But at the same time it was amazing because it’s incredibly relatable as well. We all have been through times in our life, where we had to pick between right and wrong and we all been through times in our life, where we made the wrong decisions and felt very guilty about them. We are living in a world which is constantly seduced by power and ambition. There is a greater need to be who we are. There is a lot of relatable elements to this character as well. Yeah, There is a process I follow, as an actor. It took some time, but I attained it.

On preparation

This is the first time I got to play an anti-hero. This is the first time I got a chance to do a period film. This is also the first time I got a chance to do an action film and it was all very challenging because you are doing Shakespeare’s "Macbeth". As a character, it starts from being a celebrated warrior, ends up being ruthless tyrant and that journey is very interesting. As an actor there are so many different shades and layers that you have to bring to this character.

Secondly, we shot this film in three languages: Hindi, English and Malayalam. It’s not like a Malayalam film that’s been dubbed in Hindi. The film has been shot in three different languages at the same time. So, you finish the scene in Hindi, then you do the same scene in English and then in Malayalam.

Third, was the physical transformation because Jayaraj wanted me to put a lot of muscles so as to look physically intimidating. Lot of hard work went into it because Jayaraj had a vision of how the character should look physically. So, I spent a lot of time in the gym, putting up about 12 kg of muscles. Besides these, the film is set in the world of Kalaripayattu so it was very important for us to learn the art form and we the trainer trained us for four months on Kalaripayattu and using weapons because it was very important that we trained hard enough to make it look natural. So physically there was lots of transformation and a major part of time went into training.

Also that we finished the whole film in 45 days in all three languages meant we worked 17-18 hours a day. So, that was physically exhausting as well.

On learning Malayalam

This was really challenging because Malayalam is a very difficult language to learn. You have to roll your tongue in a unique way to speak Malayalam words. The thing if you want to do Shakespeare and be convincing in it then you have to learn the language. So, we had a dialogue coach who joined us a couple of months before the principal photography and he worked with us on the lines and with the pronunciations.

On psychological effects of dark roles

It didn't happen with me. We all have a dark side as a human being and we all are capable of doing terrible things. As far as our darker sides, we don't access our darker sides because we don't want to access our darker sides. As an actor when you are playing a role like that you have to access darker shades within you. However, it never happened that it scarred me mentally or emotionally.

On similarities to other films based on "Macbeth"

Well, it is similar in the sense that it is based on Macbeth and the thing with Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been made in different languages in the world. So, the question was how to bring a fresh and new perspective to it while retaining the soul of the characters and the stories. That’s very challenging, but I think we have done a good job in that because it is set in a space which has not been seen before. The action sequences are unique and new in terms of style; Secondly, Jayaraj did a good job of merging the plot with the story of Chandu Chekavar who is one of the biggest anti-heros in Malayalam parable and Chandu, eerily, has a very similar story to that of Macbeth. However, there are elements which are very different from Macbeth as well.

On his comeback

It was just the lack of good scripts coming my way or roles that I find exciting. I think what happens is usually when you accept one particular role then everybody wants to cast you in the similar sort of role. I look forward to the Jayaraj’s vision and he said that he saw me completely differently and is going to cast me in a character that I have never done before. It wasn’t an intentional way to get away.

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