Dr Manmohan Singh Will Be Immortalised by My Film: Anupam Kher

The veteran actor speaks on his new TV show and challenging yourself at 63.

Anupam Kher is at an interesting point in his career. After 35 years in the Indian film industry, he is slowly but surely becoming a known face on the international front as well. In the last few years he has been in everything from Oscar-nominated films (Silver Linings Playbook, The Big Sick) to cult TV shows (Sense 8). This fall, he will be a series regular in New Amsterdam, a major American network drama.

We called up the veteran actor in New York to talk about how the daily grind of a TV set is different from film, playing Dr Manmohan Singh in The Accidental Prime Minister, and challenging yourself at 63.

The first episode of New Amsterdam is out. What kind of reactions you are getting about the show and your performance?

It had the second highest ratings in two years for a first episode on NBC. 9 million people saw the episode. So the network is very happy. The response to my character has also been great.

There have been a lot of popular medical dramas like Greys Anatomy and ER before. What makes New Amsterdam different?

I’ve not seen much of those other medical dramas. I would say they’re more about personal relationships. New Amsterdam is based on the real life director of Bellevue Hospital, New York who worked there for 15 years. He revolutionised the whole system. This show is more about compassion, the relationship between doctor and patient, and the nobility of the profession.

You play Dr Vijay Kapoor in New Amsterdam, what were the challenges you faced while playing the character? What kind of preparation did you put into it?

I play a neurologist on the show, so I had to understand the medical side of it. I met neurologists. I met a lot of successful Indian doctors in the US, first generation immigrants who travelled a long way to become some of the top doctors in the country.

The most difficult part is to constantly speak in a language that’s not your own. Especially when you’re given dialogue with a lot of medical and technical terms. There are words that I never heard of before, like ‘botulism’. My character has 25 years of experience in this hospital so I cannot come across as someone who is struggling. And they think I have done a lot so there’s more pressure too. Hindustan ka mahaan kalakaar type... unhein kya pata meri andarse haalat kharaab hai!

I get up in the morning at 6, I go to the park to practice my lines, I meditate. I used to do all this after Saaransh but never after that. I believe that if you become competent you can never be brilliant. I needed to unlearn and reinvent myself. How many people get to do that at the age of 63? Move to a different country for a whole year, start doing something completely different? That’s a challenge I wanted to take up and that gamble always pays off if you’re working hard at it.

You tweeted that you get mixed feelings when you watch yourself speaking English on a mainstream American show. Can you elaborate?

To see myself on billboards, on a channel like Zee Café that shows English shows, it still throws me off. It’s an entirely American cast and crew and I’m the only Indian there. People have been recognising me around the apartment where I’m staying. It is strange, it is funny.

As an actor do you approach a role in a series differently from a film? How different is the experience of shooting a TV show over shooting a film?

First of all, they don’t give us the scripts of all the episodes at once. Maybe 4 days before we shoot an episode, we get the script because the writers are still fine-tuning it. In films, like Silver Linings Playbook, I got the script over 6 months in advance. I knew the character, I knew everything.

Then you have to be present in everybody’s shot, whether you’re on camera or not. In films, you can do one scene in one day or even two days. When I do English language films, those are 20-25 days of work, you have time to learn your lines. Here we are shooting 12 hours a day. You have to finish a quota of 4-5 scenes each day. And if you are in all 5 scenes, then that’s it!

Your next big film role is that of Dr Manmohan Singh in The Accidental Prime Minister. When the role came to you, did you immediately say yes or did you deliberate over it before signing up for it?

I had said no first. I said no for almost a month, for two reasons. One, I had not read the book. Two, It’s different to portray someone who people have only seen in documentaries and pictures like say Gandhi or Churchill. Dr Manmohan Singh is a politician and leader of this generation. People know how he walks, how he talks.

Then I started thinking about it, and I read the book. It’s written by an insider, a media adviser to the PM. They gave me the script and I thought this could work. I saw videos of him for about 4 months to study his body language. I did voice exercises and voice practice for almost a month. That’s when I felt we could give it a shot.

Plus it’s a great, young team. Especially (first time director) Vijay Gutte. Akshaye Khanna joined the film, a very credible actor I think. The rest of the cast came together very well. That really convinced me.

You tweeted that you want to have tea with Dr Manmohan Singh after he watches The Accidental Prime Minister - are you looking to hear how he reacts to the film and your portrayal of him or do you have some questions of your own for the former PM?

A lot of people ask me that, you use to criticise Dr Manmohan Singh earlier, you haven’t had the best things to say about him. There’s also this perception of the film: it’s called The Accidental Prime Minister, Anupam Kher is doing it etc. But when you do a film as an actor you don’t bring in your personal issues. I have approached it with a great amount of honesty.

So a lot of people have said, Dr Singh ka kya reaction hoga. Now that I’ve done the film, I know that Dr Manmohan Singh will be immortalised by this film. He has his strengths, he has his weaknesses. He is human. You will love him when you see the film.

When you see a man walking in a corridor of the PMO, it can be a musing about loneliness, or about a person who is trying their best. I feel once he’s seen the film, I’m sure he’ll invite me over for a cup of tea. I can proudly say this is one of the two or three best performances of my life.

And finally, you were earlier quite vocal about your political views on Twitter, but have gradually just used the platform to talk about films and your work. Is there any reason why you decided to no longer be politically opinionated on social media?

Everyone goes through phases in their life. At that time I felt it was important to speak about some things and I did. Then I started feeling that it is taking up too much of my time. Social media can consume you. The more you interact on Twitter, the more you get dragged into it.

Also, when you talk about the country, people confuse it with wanting to join politics. It’s very tempting to jump on Twitter to comment on things. To not comment is an exercise in itself. There is no philosophy behind it except that I wanted to concentrate on other things.

It was a phase for me, but it doesn’t need to become my whole life. It made a difference to me when I spoke about the country, what was happening. It takes courage to stick your neck out. In my profession, everyone wants to be popular with everybody. I just felt it was time to move on from that. If something bothers me, I will definitely speak out about it.