MUMBAI: The mystery around who is Bade Sahab and who is playing the shadowy character had gripped audiences since they saw Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar and its follow-up Dhurandhar: The Revenge has given the answer -- the man is none other than underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, portrayed by actor Danish Iqbal.
The revelation came as a surprise even to the actor himself who said even though he knew about his role of Ibrahim, the man held responsible for the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts and numerous other terror incidents in India, but was never told that the character was actually Bade Sahab.
"I got my Eidi a little early. I knew that I was playing Dawood Ibrahim in this film, but I didn't know that Dawood Ibrahim is 'Bade Sahab' to be very honest. So I kept wondering who could be Bade Sahab.
"But when only a few weeks were left before the film's release, somewhere I started to feel that maybe Dawood Ibrahim's character itself could be Bade Sahab," he told PTI in an interview.
In "Dhurandhar", Bade Sahab was the unseen but omnipresent force -- controlling Lyari's crime lords, ISI handlers, senior police officers and political fixers, while remaining entirely off-screen.
Since speculation around who Bade Sahab truly was had been rife on and offline with names like Salman Khan and Emraan Hashmi doing the rounds.
"People were really interested in knowing who is going to play Bade Sahab rather than what Bade Sahab is going to do in the film. Sometimes one actor's name would come up, sometimes another actor's name would come up. Many times I also wondered who was playing this character."
Unlike the star-studded cast of the two-part crime saga, which includes Ranveer Singh, Ashaye Khanna, R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal and Sanjay, Iqbal may not be a recognised face, but the actor has been part of several acclaimed projects such as OTT shows "Maharani", "Aranyak", "The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case", and movies "Bhakshak" and "Haq".
Iqbal said that following the character's reveal, audience curiosity shifted towards how Ibrahim looks and sounds now, rather than the person behind the don persona.
"The way everything was created, the world of that character when people saw it, they forgot about which actor it was. They started focusing on the character itself."
And that is the beauty that when a character is properly brought to life on screen, people appreciate the art more rather than glorifying the personality of the actor. They start liking the character.
The appreciation I received for my acting talent became more important.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge features Singh as Jaskirat Singh Rangi, a young man who transforms into covert operative Hamza Ali Mazari operating deep inside Pakistan.
The sequel charts Mazari's rise in the Karachi underworld while tracing the origins of the man behind the cover.
Indian filmmakers have long been fascinated by Ibrahim, each offering their own take on the don on screen.
One of the most portrayed figures in Hindi cinema, Ibrahim has been depicted both directly and through inspired characters across films such as Ram Gopal Varma's "Company", Anurag Kashyap's "Black Friday", where Vijay Maurya portrayed him by name.
Hashmi also played the don in "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai", while late cinema star Rishi Kapoor portrayed him in Nikkhil Advani's "D-Day".
Iqbal said he deliberately kept himself from thinking about other portrayals of the underworld don.
"I was worried that I might get trapped in that circle, that I have to portray the character's image. But then I forgot that this is the name of a character who has a reference in front of us. And all the actors who have portrayed him because then I wouldn't have been able to play this role."
I was thinking that these are the given circumstances and these are the dialogues. These are his co-actors with whom he is talking and these are his problems. And what is his demand? What does he want? Focusing on all these things, I made the character. I didn't imitate anyone." The physical transformation for the character was equally demanding, the actor said while revealing that the prosthetic ageing makeup took between eight to ten hours to complete each day on set.
"On the first day, I thought it would be done in two or three hours, no big deal. But it took me five hours to complete it. And eventually, it took 8-9 hours. Sometimes 10 hours," he said." It doesn't look like makeup.It looks like a person. And that's why it's so difficult to do it -- portraying that age, portraying his illness, portraying his challenges on screen," he added.
Iqbal was effusive in his praise for director Dhar, calling him a "fantastic director" who created the right conditions for performance.
"He will provide you with that ultimate atmosphere on the set -- peace and quietness -- where you can actually feel comfortable and do what you actually want to do," he said.
Iqbal credited Dhar and casting director Mukesh Chhabra for ensuring every actor, regardless of stature, received their due screen presence.
"In Indian cinema, we have this tendency that a veteran or a star gets more screen time while an important but lesser known character gets minimalistic presence.
But here Aditya sir stuck to his characters, to his storyline -- what is good for the scene, what is good for the film," he said.
"Each and every actor is being noticed and being appreciated.
That's the beauty of this Dhurandhar film," Iqbal said.
