When Anil Kapoor signed up to play the real life character of ACP Afaque Baghraan in Sanjay Gupta’s Shootout at Wadala, the actor not only met the cop, he also filmed their interaction. “I taped him just in case I needed to refresh my memory while shooting. I spend almost eight hours with him, observing his interactions with people, how he dressed, walked and spoke,” recalls the 53-year-old actor. While Anil made it clear that he’d be taking creative liberties in his portrayal of Afaque, he did his homework.
These days, every actor worth his pancake-stick talks about the intense research that he did in preparation for a film role. But Anil has been doing exactly that for over 30 years. “Obviously, films like Race or Welcome don’t need any research. I just show up and do my lines. But for films like Virasaat, Parinda or Eeshwar, I delved deep into my character,” he says.
For his debut film Woh Saat Din, where he played Prem, a small town singer, Anil spent four months with the likes of Gulzar to learn the dialect. “My character was from Patiala, so I needed to pick up the dialect. I got my hair cut from a roadside barber, grew a stubble and bought my clothes from Chor Bazaar. I didn’t want to just look but also sound and behave like a boy from a village.”
Anil was clearly ahead of his times, and he remembers his sincerity wasn’t appreciated by his fellow actors or directors. “At the beginning of my career, directors like Mahesh Bhatt would say ‘he works too hard’, or Manmohan Desai would say ‘he is an actor, not a star’. And, these weren’t compliments. People like Jeetendra, Rishi Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor used to call me a jholewala actor. Those were ‘strugglers’ who used to hang outside Prithvi Theatre.” But all that name-calling didn’t deter Anil. “I knew what my goal was and the kind of actor I wanted to be. When you know where you want to go in life, you take the route that is best suited for you.”
In his career spanning over three decades, Anil has balanced a Beta with Lamhe, Biwi No. 1 with Virasat and Race with Slumdog Millionaire. This year, after the success of Race 2, Anil has his hopes pinned on Shootout at Wadala that he describes as “a gritty and powerful entertainer that is a hybrid of fact and fiction”. This is Anil’s second outing with the director after the 2004 thriller, Musafir. “I had really enjoyed doing Musafir with Gupta, so I was keen that he make Shootout at Wadala.”
The film sees Gupta’s return to direction after a gap of almost seven years. The film charts the rise of ganster Manya Surve and his subsequent death in the first-ever registered encounter by the Mumbai police on November 1, 1982. “I think, Gupta has moved with the times. His films have always been stylish but now it’s a mix of reality and style. I think, he has understood that there needs to be an element of realism in our films,” Anil explains about the change in the director’s style of filmmaking.
Apart from Shootout, Anil is focusing on the Hindi adaptation of the hit American series, 24, that he is both producing and starring in. “I am in the midst of shooting 24. I have been shooting every single night, 7 pm to 7 am. It’s going great and I am grateful to have the opportunity to make this show that goes on air in the middle of this year on Colors. I am so focused on 24 right now, I have no time to even think about other projects.”
At 53, Anil has the vigour and zeal of a 20-something. And, he credits his longevity to his love for acting. “I love my job. I love being on the sets. Even when I am not shooting, I am always talking about work. When I was younger, people would get bored because I’d go to a party or disco and still be talking about work. I guess that is why I didn’t have too many girlfriends. I must have bored them all. Only Sunita understood, so she married me. I can’t think beyond movies.”
