This engineer arrived in Mumbai with dreams. “I arrived thinking I had these amazing looks and body and that I would straight away land the lead in a Yash Chopra film. Those fancy ideas got quashed soon enough,” says Arfi Lamba, remembered for his role in Prague and who now features in the upcoming Akshay Kumar-production Fugly directed by Kabir Sadanand. “The credit for making an actor out of an engineer goes solely to Dinesh Thakur (late theatre personality and founder of theatre production house Ank).”
Comedy drama Fugly tells the story of four friends who live a good life on their terms till there’s a run-in with the law and how life takes an ugly turn thereafter. It marks the debut of Anil Kapoor’s nephew Mohit Marwah and boxer Vijender Singh and stars Jimmy Shergill too. “I play Aditya, a 22-year-old from Delhi, whose family business is manufacturing ‘latrines’. He is a total coward, a fattoo in Delhi slang. He hides the fact that he smokes and drinks. But he loves his business. He is the sort who can look at anyone’s rear and tell you which size latrine you should buy!” he laughs. Arfi says having Kabir as a director helped because he is an actor too. “His energy is super infectious. He would understand if I was nervous about a scene and would shake me out of it.”
Arfi admits that his has been a case of extremities. “When I didn’t become the quintessential Yash Chopra hero, I got into the ‘struggle’ period and became negative. After joining theatre, I started thinking that acting in films was not half as challenging as theatre. Well, I would have become what I call a jhola artist if it were not for Prague .” In the film, Arfi played Chandan Roy Sanyal’s ‘guilt’ and had to audition seven times before being chosen. “That’s why I became very sure of myself as an actor.”
Arfi says his friendship with Vijender has been a big takeaway from Fugly . “Initially I thought Vijender is a star, Mohit has studied at an international acting school and it would take time for us to break the ice.” But the first shooting schedule in Leh left no doubt. “Vijender and I are friends for life now.”
Working in an Akshay Kumar production is definitely something big for Arfi but he says he loved the story and the character first and the fact that Kabir gave the actors a very challenging environment to work in. “We are getting a good platform thanks to Akshay. Besides, the cameo song done by Salman and Akshay that’s gone viral is a big boost for us,” he says going on to add that while parallels are being drawn between last year’s Fukrey, Fugly is nothing like it. “We want Fugly to become the youth slang.”
