After his critically acclaimed performance in Manto and Sacred Games last year, Nawazuddin Siddiqui will be back in yet another biopic with Thackeray. He essays the titular role of Balasaheb Thackeray - the founder of the Shiv Sena. His transformation is remarkable but one has come to expect that of Nawaz, who has a chameleon-esque quality.
The problem with a lot of Indian biopics is that they tend to not show us the complete picture of an individual. It often feels like a Wikipedia entry or one that simply glorifies the person.
When asked by The Quint if this was a concern he said, “When biopics are made in Hollywood, the audiences are prepared to see the dark side or the negative side, but we are not prepared to see this because we have only been watching fake films. We have glorified our heroes. They had no flaws, and we have been accepting it forever. The hero cannot be negative, all the negative qualities have to be in the villain only.”
Is he also able to separate himself from a strong political idealogy? He says, “I don’t have any political ideology. On acting I could probably have an ideology, and I could talk for about 10 hours about that. But other than that I don’t really have any ideology. I am an artist, and I only want to stay like that and artists can never have ideologies. If you have one then you should become an activist.”
As the conversation veered towards his craft, one wonders if his experience is detrimental to his performances. “Experience helps in some way. But I’ve done so many films now, and every time I work with new actors or kids, I’m a little scared because they are very unconventional. So you’ll never know when they take a pause for example because they don’t have a plan in their head that I have to do it like this. They just do it in that spontaneous moment.” He adds that you have to treat each performance like your first.
Along with Thackeray, Nawazuddin will also be seen in the much-awaited second season of Netflix’s Sacred Games.
Camera: Sanjoy Deb
Assistant Camera: Gautam Sharma
Video Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan
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