Saturday, January 17, 2009

A chat with Abhay Deol

[A profile-interview I did of actor Abhay Deol for the Sunday Business Standard. It was done in 20 minutes on the phone – wouldn't have minded a longer and more indepth conversation, but maybe next time, after Abhay has done a few more films]

How long does it take for an actor to reach the point where his name is automatically associated with high-quality (if low-key) cinema? Abhay Deol is just six films old (the seventh, Dev D, releases next month), he’s played the lead in most of these films, and there isn’t really a weak link among them. Serious movie buffs – the ones who can look beyond box-office collections – know exactly what “an Abhay Deol film” is code for: a strong script, a fresh but confident director with a willingness to explore new terrain, and an understated but very effective lead performance. The growth of his career graph has been equally understated; though his films haven’t been smash hits so far, most of them have already developed a cult following and will probably have a long life on DVDs.

During a telephonic interview with Abhay, I mention that this career trajectory is especially notable when one considers his family background. As an impressionable young boy growing up in the 1980s (he was born in 1976), he would have watched the mainstream pulp that his paternal uncle Dharmendra and his much-older cousin Sunny Deol were doing at the time. A certain amount of hero-worshipping must have taken place at that age. (“Yes, yes, of course,” Abhay says.) So how did he get from there to where he is today, a standard-bearer for small, script-driven movies?

I'm expecting Abhay to underplay the Deol family connection; to steer the topic in a different direction. Not a bit of it. “But that's just the point,” he says, “As a child I had wider exposure precisely because I was from a filmi family.” His voice is warm and open (it reminds me of the young Sunny Deol in movies like Betaab and Sunny, though Abhay is speaking in English), he talks fluently and somewhat faster than I had expected – rarely pausing for breath, never stumbling over a sentence. “My taayaji and brothers travelled all over the world during their shoots, and through them I got to know about other cinemas, the possibilities of other types of movies. Most Indian youngsters didn’t have that kind of exposure before satellite TV came in, but I was lucky.”

Of course, this in itself doesn’t explain Abhay’s choice of roles; after all, most other star-children his age are doing big-banner movies with assembly-line screenplays. But he developed a varied taste in films at an early age, he explains: he was watching regular kiddie fare like Star Wars and Indiana Jones all right, but also more offbeat films such as Brazil and Blade Runner. “I was too young to understand all the nuances back then, of course,” he says (while I shake my head to dispel floating visions of Dharmendra bringing home video-cassettes of Terry Gilliam films for his little nephew along with Toblerone packets), “but I loved the look of these movies, and the music, and they motivated me to explore further.” His viewing habits are eclectic but he admits to a particular fondness for Iranian cinema. “Given the limitations on what they can portray, it’s amazing how much they’ve achieved. It’s a conservative culture, like ours, but they put subtle emotion ahead of gloss.”

Subtlety is the hallmark of Abhay’s own performances. As the engineer Satyaveer in Navdeep Singh's excellent “Rajasthani noir” Manorama Six Feet Under, he was the epitome of the inconspicuous, small-town Everyman, getting by from one day to the next, vaguely sensing that he can go on to better things but not driven enough to do much about it. Occupying a very different world from this character is the go-getting thief Lucky Singh in Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, but Abhay brings a fine shade to even this inherently flamboyant role. Lucky is a charismatic rogue who lives by his wits, but we can see the effort that goes into his facade of self-assurance; he’s what one might call a fully realised character, created from the inside out.

“Well, I liked films where I could relate to the characters – where I found them tangible and real,” he says, “As you know, most of the Hindi movies we grew up with were full of larger-than-life characters. I would watch all that and be entertained by it, but I didn't feel a connect with it. For me, exploring my creativity as an actor has meant staying away from bigger-than-life roles.” Asked for examples of actors who have inspired him, he rather unexpectedly mentions Charlize Theron in Monster. "Now there's a performance that could make you feel empathy for a serial killer, a woman who's monstrous on the surface. She puts the viewer in the character's shoes, showing us how cruel and isolating society can be – how it can push you into a corner. I'd love to do work like that, which opens your mind to other lives."

It's interesting that the very first performance he thought of was by a female actor, I remark (and also non-Deol-like, I think silently to myself, though I've told myself to get those simplifications out of my head). “It isn't about being male or female, it's about performance, it's about something that strikes a chord with you,” Abhay says, adding, almost as a concession, that he was a big Peter Sellers fan too, “in Dr Strangelove, and many other films.”

He enjoyed playing the title role in Dev D, an updating of the Devdas story, written and directed by that most individualistic of filmmakers, Anurag Kashyap. Having only worked with relatively inexperienced directors so far (including the debutants Imtiaz Ali, Navdeep Singh and Sanjay Khanduri), was it intimidating to be helmed by a man who is among Bollywood’s few genuine auteurs? Did he feel constrained as a performer? “No, Anurag has been a friend for a long time – since before I joined films, in fact – so there was nothing to be nervous about,” he replies, “Besides, in my view, an actor is a tool in any director’s hands. For that matter, a director himself is a tool – I think of a film as one big jigsaw puzzle, which everyone contributes a piece to.”

This said, he’s excited about the adrenaline, the originality of treatment, that Kashyap has brought to a familiar tale. “Our setting is modern, urban and gritty,” he says, “but deep down this is very much the Devdas story as it was originally written nearly a hundred years ago. When I read the Chattopadhyay book – we all did, before starting the film – I was fascinated by all the angst towards social norms, which has been poured out through this one character. We haven’t tampered with that spirit at all.”

“I tried to dig deep into Dev’s psyche, and I hope I’ve succeeded. Right now he’s the character closest to my heart, though I also enjoyed playing Satyaveer – a common man forced into submission – and Lucky, who represents the idea that we can all be extraordinary on some level.”

A couple of decades ago, Naseeruddin Shah – the thinking man's actor for another generation – decided to wriggle out of the “Serious Actor” straitjacket and have a grand old time in entertainers like Karma, Tridev and Jalwa. Does Abhay see himself doing something similar down the line? “But you know, my intention even now is to make films that are commercial,” he insists. “It's not like I'm trying to select movies that won't do well.”

Very briefly, he gets defensive. “I don't know why my uncle and brother got singled out for doing the sort of cinema they did,” he says. “Everyone in mainstream Hindi cinema was doing the same thing back then – if you wanted to make a film that would have a decent-sized audience, the possibilities were limited. Today, things have changed. International films are released immediately in India, we have movie channels that show foreign-language movies, people are more aware and spoilt for choice. It’s possible now to make a film with a strong, original script and still have it seen by a large audience.”

“I don't much care for this division between commercial and non-commercial films – I don’t think it’s relevant anymore.” Strong scripts are what attract him and in the final analysis “the only distinction to be made now is between a good and a bad film”. Going by his record so far, it's likely that he'll maintain that distinction.

P.S. See this blog post by Abhay on Passion for Cinema.

16 comments:

  1. Abhay Deol is one of the few sensible actors in the recent times. His movies are never disappointing.

    It's interesting to see his views on "commercial" and "meaningful" cinema(I fail to understand why is it a general feeling that they can't co-exist).

    But I tend to differ with him on the point that exploring creativity meant staying away from larger than life roles. Those roles have their own charm.

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  2. A Line of Thought: well, technically speaking he said "for me, exploring my creativity has meant..." But I certainly agree that generally speaking an actor can explore creativity even while doing larger-than-life roles (or loud roles for that matter). Anyway, understated realism is just one mode of expression among many; don't kathakali performers explore creativity too?

    If this had been a longer conversation I would have asked him if he would consider doing a really over-the-top character/caricature sometime. I suspect he will, but only after a few more films.

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  3. Interesting interview. Abhay Deol's filmogrpahy is definitely off the beaten track. Other than Honeymoon Travels that left me a bit cold I personally found all the other movies as definitely worth a watch and Manorama - Six Feet Under a must have DVD (Yet to watch Ek Chaalis ki Last Local though).

    Looking at the trailers Dev D seems to be a much more contemporary remake and seems to have a much more darker movie than the other Dev D's made so far.

    And conjuring up an image of Toblerone's with Terry Gilliam DVD's on Dharmendra's hands is still making me chuckle.

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  4. Thanks for posting the chat/interview. Abhay Deol certainly has a devout fan base that has been increasing with his every new release.

    Can't wait for the the Dev D release. The songs are so good, that as one other blogger said in her post, if the movie winds up even half as subversive as its soundtrack, I am going to be ecstatic.

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  5. I don't think Abhay Deol is a good actor. He appears amateurish. But his films are good and his roles are good. On this note, I think it's unfair that children of film industry veterans appear in so many films whether they know to act or not. While the non-masala movie circuit at least has lots of actors who can really act, even a sprinkling of these non-actor filmy children makes us viewers lose an opportunity to view the actually brilliant actors.

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  6. Hi Dey,

    You are of course entitled to your opinion about whether Abhay Deol is a good actor or not, but I feel given the kind of films he's making and the directors he's working with, it would've been quite simple to replace him were he not considered good. These film-makers are quite willing to give unexplored talent a chance and would hardly give him roles unless they felt he could do justice to them. He's certainly no Katrina Kaif of non-mainstream films!

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  7. Very much looking forward to Dev.D - this interview comes right on the crest of the hype wave. I am positively PUMPED.

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  8. ok, so I read the post title and rushed to the comments rightaway to say I. a.m. j.e.a.l.o.u.s. (of you)

    ...and now to read the post.

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  9. Nightwatchmen: Gilliam videotapes, not DVDs - we're talking mid-1980s here. Foreign-returned Toblerones belong to those hazy, pre-liberalisation days too - somehow I have a very hard time picturing a bag containing Toblerones and DVDs.

    I. a.m. j.e.a.l.o.u.s. (of you)

    Smita: ya well, I already guessed that Abhay wasn't the one you were jealous of!

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  10. Hey Jai

    You didn't ask him about Ahista-Ahista! I thought it was his most uninhibited performance. (Satyaveer and Lucky were full-on 'characters', if you know what I mean)
    Abhay is a very smart actor. He chooses his roles well. It might be a tad early to say if he's brilliant (or even compare him with the Shah).

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  11. I don't buy his argument that things have dramatically changed in India. It is not as though small, script driven movies weren't being made in Bollywood in the earlier decades.

    Yes. I do agree that movies have become thematically more diverse thanks to the emergence of the multiplex audience. But they're not necessarily better examples of movie making than the best movies of say the late 70s/early eighties.

    People do have more choice. Today, thanks to the internet I can view just about any great movie made over the past century. But how many people exercise it. For instance, in my predominantly yuppie workplace, there is more buzz on a friday evening about mainstream flicks like Rab Ne or a Ghajini than about any other film.

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  12. Hi Jai. My name is Maneesha Jacob and I'm currently pursuing Journalism from Delhi University and interning at CNN-IBN. As part of my course, I am doing a thesis report on how Hindi filmmakers today are forcefully trying to define what is "Indian" and what is not. I contacted Samanth and he asked me to contact you. I would like to include your interview for the same. If you feel that you can give me the time, then please contact me on maneesha.jacob@gmail.com.

    Waiting for a positive reply.

    Regards,
    Maneesha

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  13. its not about doing varied roles and connecting with them its about limitation. How can you expect a person with looks of abhay deol to do a commercial film and run around trees with his 4 half packs. He is more of an intelligent guy unlike tushar kapoor who chooses his role according to his limitation not because of doing serious cinema.

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  14. Avinash: that was a hilarious comment on different levels (I didn't know you needed six-pack abs to run around trees), but I have a scary feeling that you were being serious.

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  15. Wow. This is such well written and (assuming here) well conducted interview. as a relief from the usual inane and nonsensical questions that other interviewers do - eg how did you feel when you made this movie? Duh?
    The comments also were more thoughtful that the bizarre ones in other places.
    Hope you do more of these
    Shubhra

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