EXCLUSIVE | Anil Kapoor: 'Certain actors are blessed to be born in a literate family, I worked very hard to be here'

Anil Kapoor is one of those rare actors that can look both rugged and sexy. He definitely pulled the former off with choices like Mashaal, Tezaab, and Ram Lakhan. And with Lamhe, Thar, Dil Dhadakne Do, and more recently The Night Manager, the seasoned performer has branched into a totally different form of acting.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Kapoor spoke about the responses that have been coming his way for The Night Manager, working on his voice and diction since the late 70s, and what it takes to participate in adaptations and remakes.

You’re one of the only actors who has seen success in Hindi films, Hollywood, and now on OTT. How much has the meaning of success changed or evolved for you?

Very interesting question. You’re making me a little aware. Success is success, wherever it happens, it makes you happy. It’s like tonic, it’s like an injection, it pumps you up. It makes you do even better and better. I’m fortunate that I’ve had the energy and the fitness to maintain this for 40 years now. When I look back, I see that something worked in 1983, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, and something happened in 1990 too. A film might not have become successful but I won a lot of awards I guess. Something or the other has kept on happening from 1983 to 2023.

Your dialogue delivery is always very clean and effective. Have you been working on your diction ever since you started?

I have been working on my voice and my diction, if I can remember, much before Woh Saat Din. I used to go for a walk with my grandfather in the late 70s. I used to climb about 200 steps of a tower and work on my voice. I also started training in semi- classical singing, not because I wanted to become a singer, but because it would help me in playback singing in films and help me improve my voice. Of course, whatever exercises I’ve learned when I was doing my acting course, I kept on working on my voice. Today, we have workshops and everything but earlier, we used to learn things on the sets. We used to get lines, scenes, and dialogues on the sets, and many times there were no scripts also. This is a process and I’m still learning. When I was doing AK v/s AK, I had a voice coach and I learned a lot of things again. There are certain actors who are blessed to be born in a literate family, I’m from Chembur and have worked really hard to be where I am. I used to talk like ‘Apun idhar jaata hai, tu kidhar jaata hai re.’ And you saw a lot of it in characters like Mashaal and Tezaab but I played an Urdu professor also. I asked the makers why they cast me as an Urdu professor yaar. If you see the pitching of The Night Manager also, there’s a certain way in which Shelly is going to speak. There are certain lines that play to the gallery but i try to make it real. Like that scene where I say ‘Never mistake me for a man in an expensive suit. Byculla bride ke neeche maine apna pehla dhanda shuru kiya.’

Not only The Night Manager, but your other works like Nayak, 1942- A Love Story, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja are also mounted on a huge scale. Being a producer as well, what does it take to create grandeur?

Well, it requires a lot of hard work. More than 300-400 to 500 people are putting together all their creativity, physical labour to create something big. When we did Mr. India, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja, or to an extent when we made Woh Saath Din, Thar, Khoobsurat, Veere Di Wedding, different films need different people. They need the kind of producers that can get together to bring the right team, the right stars, put them together, get the money, and pitch it to the right studio. This is a job that’s in my bloodstream because I’m a producer’s son. A producer’s work sometimes goes unnoticed but I give a lot of credit to them because without a good producer, it’s impossible to make a good product in today’s times.

I really enjoyed your chemistry and scenes with Saswata, Aditya. How long does it take for you to understand your co-actor, his style of acting and preparation?

I spend a lot of time with my actors. Like with Saswata, I spent a lot of time with him since we play best friends in the film. We used to have readings of the scripts right here where I’m sitting now. For instance on the show, he likes smoking and I also like smoking, which I have never done in any of my films, I’m not a smoker myself so that was a difficult part for me. Drinking wine, holding a cigar, all these are things I’ve never done in my life (smiles). People think it’s all coming very naturally but I had to work towards it. With Aditya I had already done Malang, so there was a comfort level. Sandeep the director didn’t want us to interact too much or else the magic wouldn’t be there. This is because we both are from different worlds. Both of us shouldn’t know what the other person is going to say, and how the other person is going to react.

On working with Amrish Puri in some of his most memorable films

Amrish Ji was a great actor and a greater human being. He was a lovely man, a child at heart and very hardworking, phenomenal voice and phenomenal presence. What a face! What I learned from him is his commitment to his work, his down-to-earth nature and humility.

The Night Manager, Virasat, Nayak, Eeshwar; all these titles are remakes but you’ve made them into your own. How do you bring a certain sense of freshness to something that’s sourced?

It helps initially, and then you forget about it. The filmmaker who’s directing it is very very important. All the films you’ve mentioned to me, like Eeshwar was directed by K Vishwanath, I just followed him blindly. You then mentioned Virasat, the material itself was so great and then there was Priyadarshan directing me, great director. Ravi Chandran‘s first film, Tabu, Pooja Batra, Amrish ji. Then you mentioned Nayak, Shankar, great director, very hardworking and we got along very well. Anurag Kashyap wrote the dialogues of the film. The way the material was adapted in Hindi was fantastic. The same goes for The Night Manager.

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