Watching Vinay Pathak as the aging Gour Hari Das makes you wonder what an opportunity can do to an actor. One caught up with Ananth Mahadevan’s film on the freedom fighter who took on the Indian bureaucracy for recognition at the ongoing Indian Panorama Film Festival at the Siri Fort Auditorium.
The film comes as a welcome surprise because after Bheja Fry , Vinay was almost condemned as a comic actor. “When you do a certain kind of role and I am not condemning our industry – it happens everywhere – your image becomes bigger than whatever you are and that sells and perhaps that’s why we have business of cinema. So when Ananth came with this character I was shocked and asked why me. It is an actor’s dream to play a freedom fighter, who is still alive. He said he saw me in Pappu Can’t Dance Saala and found there were certain things that complemented his vision. I didn’t see the link but I was so elated and that I didn’t care to go into the details,” says Pathak sitting in the green room of the auditorium.
In the hindsight, he adds, Bheja Fry helped him. “The film gave me liberty to tell different stories. It was only because of Bheja Fry that I could produce Dasvidaniya . When Straight, which dealt with homosexuality, was releasing we knew that it was not going to open well but the very fact that it got released was because the market believed in me.”
Ananth and his team haven’t done anything extra to energise Das’s story to reach out to the young and happening. “Milkha Singh was an energetic film,” retorts Pathak leaving the rest to our interpretation. “ Main chapal performer hoon . (I am an agile performer). I can jump all over the place in 60 seconds. That is something that comes easy to me. But here is somebody who is real, who is not quick but is energetic. He has a sense of humour as well but he doesn’t push it and a lot of times he himself doesn’t himself realise that he has said something funny. There are so many situations in the film where you could say that this could have been a cliché; this could have been used for a laugh track. How we have breezed through them was the challenge for writing.”
Das had a huge impact on the team. “I met him only four-five times and I told Ananth that I don’t want to bug him. He is a pleasant old man. I just watched him. He is not an unusual old man. He is a type. I could draw parallels with my grandfather and so many other old people whom I know. He has a very thick Oriya accent. Initially, we tried it but it felt jarring. It almost looked as if we are making fun of his accent. It was a creative call that let’s keep it to simple Hindi. You won’t be able to find a simple man like him. He is the secretary of the society where he lives but he doesn’t take an auto to get the documents photocopied. He walks down the road and when somebody asks him he says in matter of fact manner that this is society’s money and he can’t use it on himself. And then he would add, is bahane chalna ho jata hai . He doesn’t flaunt his benevolence. Plus his diligence towards work and his conviction is infectious. We are missing it these days. For me the struggle was how I should portray it that is doesn’t feel melodramatic.”
Pathak, who has done commercial stuff like Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi with Shah Rukh Khan, says for him there is a constant struggle to hit the right note. “Getting real is the most difficult thing. There is a superstar, who says yaar main kitna cool hoon, jaise hi camera shuru hota I can’t be myself . There is something true in it and I am not making fun of him. In our training school the first thing we struggle with is how to control our hands on stage. It is human nature the moment you know five people are looking at you and you have to walk from point A to B suddenly every step becomes heavy. Every actor has a different way to tackle it. Some energise it, so you don’t actually see the process. Some are able to find a balance. Like I marvel how Irrfan manages to do it right every time. He is the only Indian actor I know who doesn’t have an item gesture. He doesn’t have a stock mannerism.”
According to Pathak, right intentions don’t always help. “When I was doing television and the 9 p.m. shift would get stretched to 9.30 because of my insistence for perfection, the director would tell the spot boy to clap after the next take so that all could go home. So, the spot boy would clap are sir kya shot diya but I would know in my heart that it was rubbish. The point is the actor should not get carried away and continue to value diligence.”
Pathak will now be seen in Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur. “He also pushes the boundaries. He keeps on challenging me and I keep on challenging him. This is our second film together after Johnny Gaddar and given a chance I want to be part of his every film.”
As for acting with Varun Dhawan who comes from a different school. “Before the shoot batiya lete hain . We talk about our ‘schools’ and then actors find a way to communicate.”
