Ready to strike

What was it like playing a carrom champ in the soon-to-be-released film Striker? Ask actor Siddharth

January 28, 2010 04:07 pm | Updated 04:07 pm IST

Siddharth in "Striker"

Siddharth in "Striker"

Ask Siddharth about his new film Striker , hitting the theatres in the first week of February, and he says, “I feel like a newcomer.” When an actor experiences feelings of being a newcomer to the industry, given that he is actually not, then there can be only two causes: either the film is refreshingly new or the time lapse after his last release has been huge. For Siddharth, whose last Hindi release (2006) was the critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful Rang De Basanti , both of the above are true, but he says it's his role as the man of the masses that has got him all excited like a debutant. “I have seen the movie just last week and I am sure it's a mind-blowing film that will bring in the audiences,” says Siddharth.

It may be four years since his last Hindi film and three since his last Telugu one, but Siddharth is happy that he waited for this role to come along.

“I hold the position of being a box office star in Telugu filmdom. So I was looking for something substantial. I think with this film I will get my certificate of being a Hindi film star too!” he laughs. But the subject of Striker is no laughing matter. Set in the 1980s, Striker is about a young boy named Surya Kant (Siddharth) who plays carrom and is a champ at the game. As he grows up and looks for a job, he is duped by an employment agency that had lured him with a Dubai posting. How carrom ultimately helps him overthrow the man, who has been the reason for the misery of several people, forms the crux of the story.

Striker is biographical. It follows Surya through his life from the age of 10 to 32. It is about friendship and love; it's not just an intense drama. Of course, it is in the league of the Eighties angry-young-man-out-to-set-the-world-right kind of films such as Zanjeer and Arjun ,” says Siddharth.

Pro at carrom

For a Chennai boy with a large part of his academic life spent in Delhi, acting as a native of the ghettoized colony of Malvani in northern Mumbai must not have been an easy task. “I may not have had very close contact with their lifestyle but you play your part as an actor. I never hated my father or had any experience of killing him, but I did it in Rang De Basanti ! For Striker , I believe, the research was more psychological than physical. I understood that Malvani is a self-sustained ghetto. It has a certain feel to it that was necessary to inculcate in my character,” explains the actor. Also, the fact that Siddharth is a pro at carrom certainly helped him.

The 30-year-old charming actor of Boyz fame is now training for his first epic fairy tale in Telugu. Yet to be titled, the film is being directed by National Award winning-director Prakash Rao, son of veteran K. Raghavendra Rao and stars Shruti Hassan opposite him. Siddharth is currently training for the film as it requires extensive knowledge of martial arts. “If I need to perform martial arts, I'd better know how to do it convincingly. I am training in three forms of martial arts — two Japanese and one Korean style of sword-fighting,” he adds.

Siddharth may be ready for take off once again with a Hindi and a Telugu film each, but he is not settling down in any one industry yet. Ask him if has shifted to Mumbai for good, and he laughs. “No, I am still living out of suitcases. As an actor, I can't afford to stay put in one place, can I?”

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