EXCLUSIVE | Kunchacko Boban interview: 'Nowadays, the uncomfortable zone is more comfortable for me'
EXCLUSIVE | Kunchacko Boban interview: 'Nowadays, the uncomfortable zone is more comfortable for me'
Kunchacko Boban has had a dream year in every way imaginable for an actor. Three of his films–Kamal K.M.’s Pada, Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s Nna, Thaan Case Kodu and Mahesh Narayanan’s Ariyippu – got glowing reviews. Ariyippu had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and won the International Film Festival of Kerala’s NETPAC Award for Best Malayalam Film. And Nna, Thaan Case Kodu was a box-office hit. With Ariyippu, he also launched Kunchacko Boban Productions.
Up next: he’s in Tinu Pappachan’s Chaaver, a political movie with a story by Joy Mathew; Senna Hegde’s Padmini(“a light-hearted film”); and a thriller with Midhun Manuel Thomas after their blockbuster team-up for Anjaam Pathiraa.
Int his extended interview in Thiruvananthapuram, he discusses 2022 and his silver jubilee in Malayalam cinema. Excerpts:
Could 2022 be counted as one of your career’s more significant years?
Definitely. Not just in terms of films I’ve done. This is my 25th year in the industry. I’d never dreamt of that. I came into the industry by accident though I didn’t want to be associated with it in any manner. I had a dream debut, later things got haywire and I got to a point where I was not up to the mark. Maybe the fire was missing. I found myself boring, so I thought: how will the audience find me if I find myself boring? (Laughs) So I took a hiatus but during that period found that I was maybe intended for movies.
My grandfather, father, granduncle, uncles have all been in the industry. Maybe it was in my blood and I was destined for it. When I returned, I went the hard way. Maybe the process would be slow, but I went step by step. I didn’t take the lift, I took the stairs – I found that interesting and exciting. I found myself pumped up to try different characters and genres, and was fortunate to have so many talents around me, even as friends, to help me.
I started my second innings with Gulumal, a humour-packed movie that was not what I was previously associated with. Earlier I had a romantic image, but in my second innings, image-breaking characters and movies began happening. Like Rajesh Pillai’s Traffic and Lal Jose’s Elsamma Enna Aankutty. Mahesh (Narayanan) as an editor was associated with me in most movies that were path-breaking in my career. Then Take Off (Mahesh’s directorial debut starring Parvathy and Kunchacko) happened. Mahesh encouraged me to try different types of daring characters and movies. I was charged up about trying new things when OTT platforms arrived. Then when the pandemic happened, and people were confined to their rooms, the scenario for the Malayalam movie industry opened up to the world in a big way. It’s during this phase that Virus, Anjaam Pathiraa, Nayattu, Pada, Allu Ramendran all came out. If you look back to the last two or three years, the top 10 Indian films lists included Malayalam films. I was fortunate to have at least one or two movies of mine in that list.
Top 10 in terms of quality– correct?
Yeah, not commercial wise but content wise. In content-driven entertainment, the Malayalam industry has gone places. Bollywood and other industries were also looking at the Malayalam industry for our content. I was lucky to be in this industry at this time. My imagination had a limit, but people were coming to me with characters and movies that went beyond that. And I was going to people, asking: do a film with me, try something different.
So you chose not to take the easy path in your second innings.
Yes. In my first innings I even looked the same. I didn’t even allow people to touch my hair or moustache. I was comfortable with my appearance and didn’t want to leave that comfort zone. Nowadays, the uncomfortable zone is more comfortable for me. People say leaving your comfort zone is hard, but I find that zone comforting, interesting and exciting. Now I’ve attempted different things in my appearance and choice of characters.
When you began experimenting, did you worry at some point that it was a mistake?
No, because I was giving me time. You know it might or might not work out, but you should try. You can learn from mistakes or good things that happen. Both are a learning and unlearning process. At least you’re trying something, you’re alive. You’re not just a guy doing a character. You’re someone who’s trying to do daring things in your life and that adds fire to it. That fire was there and I was up for that. It might hurt sometimes, but you have to take it in that stride. That process was exciting. I was not worried about what critics or people would think, because I was trying to reinvent myself, polish myself, to find the fine actor in you. The process is still going on. It will go on till the end.
It’s unusual for a mainstream male star to do a How Old Are You? People could either say, “Wow, he did this role in a feminist film where Manju is the protagonist” or “Oh, does Kunchacko think he’s no longer hero material?” Why did you risk it?
I’ve been associated so long with strong women in my life and family– my grandmother, mother, wife – that I don’t find it a so-called risky situation when the female character has dominance and I’m maybe a sidekick. I’m happy to support them in their cause in some way.
I started with Aniyathipraavu and my character Sudhi was equally accepted by the audience as Shalini’s character Mini. Even today people don’t say it was a woman-centric film. Niram, How Old Are You?, Take Off, Ramante Edanthottam all have strong women characters and I’m so happy I can be a guy who has strong women in my real life and reel life. So if people ask why I did a heroine-centric movie, I don’t care. I just want to be part of a good movie. And if movie lovers still remember these films or their characters, that’s the thing for me –my name is in those movies. The male chauvinist thing doesn’t affect me.
As for people who’ve been saying Chackochan is okay only for woman-centric films, multi-starrers and romances, my answer is Anjaam Pathiraa. I proved it to them. You don’t have to always prove to your critics or other guys what you really are.
How does an actor hone the instinct that tells you when you look at a script that your character will be significant and treated fairly even if it’s a multi-starrer?
Maybe it comes from experiences, good and bad. You trust your technicians. Most are my friends, that matters a lot. If someone close to me in real life comes up with exciting scripts, even if I don’t have that much screen space in it but there’s screen presence, that matters a lot. And if it’s a character I haven’t portrayed before, that’s exciting for me. There’s no particular formula. My instincts have gone wrong and right, but luckily for me, most of the time it has ticked the right columns.
What would be a bad experience?
A bad experience might be a good movie that didn’t do well in theatres. Like Chirakodinja Kinavukal. It was a spoof film. You did a movie you think is good, which was exciting and daring for me, it didn’t work among the mass but when people see it on TV, they still call or message to say it’s superb. That’s a bad experience, but you can still say you were part of a good movie. Even your bad choices – I won’t name the movies – when you think your character is daring and different, but the film didn’t work both critically and commercially, you can learn from that bad experience because you might have concentrated only on your character, not the entire movie.
Why did you initially not want to be associated with films?
Because of things that happened to my family in my childhood because of movies – movies were disasters, we had financial problems. This affected them and me emotionally as well, so I didn’t want to be a part of movies in any manner. I even told my father to get rid of the Udaya banner (he’s referring to the historic Udaya Studios), and now here I am again with Udaya Pictures and another banner, Kunchacko Boban Productions, co-producing movies like Ariyippu and Nna, Thaan Case Kodu the same year. That’s life.
You said an “accident” brought you into the industry…
Accident means, Fazil saab is a close family friend. He wanted a boy for the lead in a heroine-oriented movie, Aniyathipraavu. His wife Rosie Aunty recommended me. I was doing my B.Com finals and was not at all interested in doing a movie, but my father was interested, so he told me to at least give it a shot and if I don’t like it, just leave it. I said: I’ll try it only for your sake, not for me. That’s how I went for the audition. I did something, I don’t know, and I was sure I won’t be selected, but I was. Even while shooting, I wasn’t bothered. Some people might find their first experience before the camera scary, but for me it was just something I was doing for my father, and I’d go back to college after the shoot. But then history happened.
If cinema hadn’t worked out, what would you have done after B.Com?
Plan was maybe going into business– which I’m bad at, it’s not at all suited to my character. I studied Biology during my pre-degree (Class 11 and 12) because I wanted to do Medicine. But after writing the entrance exam I understood that’s not the area for me. Then I went for B.Com. I was good at it but just before the final year exams, Aniyathipraavu’s shooting was going on and it became a blockbuster. I completed the exams only after the movie was shot.
Even when I took a break from the movie industry for two years or so in 2005, me and my wife studied for correspondence MBA. During that time we understood that this is not me, that people still loved me for my movies. During those years, people would come to me and say: we saw this movie today on TV, it was good, we loved you for it. So we understood that I belonged to the movie industry. The fire was lit then. After that only I decided, we decided, actually my wife was also there to support me to try different movies and roles.
I’d like to go back to some of your earlier films. Like Traffic. Sometimes in Malayalam cinema, men get forgiven easily for doing terrible things – not like a guy having a fight with his wife, it’s a guy hitting his wife with a car.
(He laughs softly.)
Beyond your filmography, Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha for a change actually condemns marital rape and describes it as a crime, but at the end of the day the film forgives the man for things it recognises as being wrong. Looking back, are you comfortable with the treatment of your character’s journeyin Traffic?
(Long pause) I haven’t thought about this the way you interpreted it. At that time (laughs) I was happy with my character’s journey because it was something I hadn’t done before. It was different, daring and challenging for me as an actor. In that sense, I’m comfortable with it. But to the extent that you have interpreted it in a different manner, there is a bit of marital rape, something like that, in Ariyippu and you don’t have to forgive Hareesh for that in this movie. So, things are changing. (Laughs)
You see the difference though, right?
Yeah. But things are shifting even in real life. Previously women didn’t dare to question, they accepted it. Nowadays women are questioning it, challenging it. Okay marital rape…no…you must ask my permission if you want to have love with me…make sure it’s love, not just sex. (Laughs)Women are daring to take a stand, maybe that real-life shift is seen in movies.
Ariyippu is set in UP, and characters speak Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam. South Indian cinema tends to show the mix of languages you’d naturally see in the real place in which a story is set. The reverse rarely happens. Hindi filmmakers will set a film in Tamil Nadu with Tamilian characters all speaking Hindi. Why do you think that is?
Malayalam movies have always been deep-rooted to our culture and wanted to be realistic or relatable even to the common man. In most Malayalam movies with critical acclamation, you won’t find a character saying something that might block the flow of the movie. So different languages are placed in a manner that is apt. Mallus like Hareesh and Reshmi say Hindi at times in Ariyippu, but it’s not forced. It’s natural with the flow of the movie. A Tamil-speaking Kannan Arunachalam says Hindi, English and Tamil, but you don’t find it jarring because he’s from that place, he’s a Tamilian, might have been living in Delhi for long. His Hindi is also different from the policeman’s dialect. Even among those speaking Hindi in the film, all the Hindis are different. They’re speaking Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam as well. You find it natural because the languages or dialects are in tandem with the kind of character they are. This natural, organic flair is there more in Malayalam movies.
Why is this language authenticity, like in Ariyippu, not seen in Hindi films?
Maybe because they spoonfeed the audience. We don’t spoonfeed the audience in most Malayalam movies. There are layers for the audience to detect. That might be one factor.
Was it difficult to do that scene in Ariyippu in which Hareesh is violent with Reshmi?Because he’s doing something horrible and because it could have affected your image?
I don’t think so. It might have crossed my mind how people would interpret it or think of me as an actor, but it was challenging, daring, different, and that excited me. Difficult part was there, but as I said, I’ve been comfortable in an uncomfortable zone for quite some films. My primary concern was that it shouldn’t be vulgar. And Mahesh was 100% confident that it won’t be. Only that mattered. Otherwise, getting into that situation was a bit difficult for me. Because it was alien for me, both in real and reel life. I had to get into the skin of the character, go to the trauma, dilemma or emotions he had previously, the emotional turmoil and the intensity. Mahesh gave us time. He said: you shouldn’t do it in a pressurised manner, take Hareesh’s pressure and emotion into you, be Hareesh, not the actor, be the character.
Even Divya Prabha would call me Hareesh in the sets, not by my name. (Laughs) So we were like Hareesh and Reshmi, that kind of arrogance in our relationship was there between us on the sets, and it helped to do that scene. It was an intimate scene but it didn’t look vulgar. That intensity was there and that cruelty was also conveyed to the audience.
What do you think of Divya Prabha’s craft as an actor?
I’ve worked with her in Take Off and Nizhal. In Ariyippu she wanted to play Reshmi in a natural way. Reshmi is a skilled labour, so she had to make it look realistic. She was taken to a gloves factory and trained. Mahesh was particular that she didn’t look the odd one out among the workers while shooting. So when the movie starts with Reshmi doing that glove thing, you don’t find it unnatural, it’s like a routine thing happening. And she is one actress who was capable to bring out all Reshmi’s emotions in a relatable manner, in a natural way. She has done a stupendous job of shouldering a character as heavy as Reshmi.
One criticism of Malayalam cinema is that while it brings up issues that many other Indian cinemas are afraid to tackle, it rarely deals with caste. Ariyippu has a caste element, Pada is about caste, but Nayattu was a mixed bag. The scene at the police station and the portrayal of that villainous character played into a view held by dominant communities that laws favouring the marginalised tend to be misused. This is not to say no member of a marginalised community ever misused a law, but that the very few who do – whether women or from other social groups – are played up to such an extent that everyone will always talk about, “oh women give false cases” etc. Looking back at Nayattu, is there a rethink?
(Pause) See, Shahi (Kabir) has written movies inspired from real-life incidents. The most unbelievable things happen in real life that you are unable to show in movies because if we see them in movies we will say “oh, will that happen?” That has happened. It’s happening still in real life. Simply put, we Malayalis are proud to say we’re a 100% literate state, very brilliant people, but even now the latest serious incidents of narabali (human sacrifice) has happened (he is referring to recent reports). This is the kind of literacy we’ve achieved. Black magic is still happening. So in the case of Nayattu also, those things have happened.
But I’m asking since cinema rarely portrays genuine concerns about caste oppression, is it not a problem that Nayattu picked a negative character from a marginalised caste and played into a stereotype that the marginalised misuse the empathy of liberals?
Actually you can’t say he’s 100% a villain. In the movie, almost all are villains. In one scene, Maniyan says that we (the police) are legal goondas; if we’re given an assignment, we cannot say no; we have to do it even if it’s against law, even if we’re law enforcers. There the system is a villain. Law enforcers are villains. So it’s not like one particular character playing a particular caste is a villain and he’s a representative of all that. It’s not like that. It’s an incident, and in that incident, the law is breaking the law, law is hunting law-enforcers also. In that case, law is also the villain. You can’t just politicise things and say this particular man is representative of this religion or caste and they’re all portrayed in that manner. No. We’re saying about the system. From the top brass to the bottom level, all are playing that part as a villain, and some of them are helpless. In that case, the villains are helpless. They are human beings. So maybe the particular character you said is a villain will be also having a helpless situation in his life which we didn’t go into details. So everyone has their positives and negatives, the gray shades particularly, and they maybe helpless in doing something villainous because of the situation. That basic emotion should be received from that movie.
Are you aware of the criticism by Dalit rights activists and Dalits? This is an aspect of Nayattu I too had criticised although my overall review was positive.
(Pause) I haven’t gone into much detail regarding this because basically I’m a selfish person in the case of characters I play. I was thrilled by the different characters I was playing, and that character had to be justified – that was my priority, in spite of being part of a great movie. I was not really bothered about the other things that flared up, the criticisms and incidents and things like that. I didn’t give it a second thought to be frank. I know how the criticisms happened and the Dalit or suppression angles have flared up or been politicised, but overall the movie – for you as well – worked for me. These kind of things happen around us. It was not a deliberate attempt to tarnish a particular section of a belief, religion or caste. We were saying about the system. That should stand first. The misuse of the system in a manner that might affect a particular section of people is happening in real life. If it was portrayed in that manner, it’s happening, it’s there. Women coming with false accusations or oppressed people being exploited by the system – all these are happening in real life. And if a single film pinches you, that’s the truth actually. There’s truth in it. And you have to realise that and go accordingly and just not against the film.
But when a minuscule number of members of marginalised communities – whether women, Dalits or others – do something wrong, that minuscule number is played up.
Okay, understood. Understood. (Pause) You think that is being flared up in this movie?
I felt the treatment of that character played into the stereotype that the marginalised tend to misuse the empathy that exists for them among liberals and in the system.
Okay, understood. That may be one aspect, but I don’t think it was flared up in this movie. If you look at the film in totality, the system is the main culprit. That’s why all these people, even the law enforcers, are victims. And the man on top, the politician, is ruling people with the words of the people. The people are giving him the right to do something good or to make the system work in a proper manner, but that’s not happening. So the people who are giving power to that person are also culprits, they’re also villains.
Nna, Thaan Case Kodu – how does a person look at that script and know it will turn intosuch a fun, entertaining, intelligent film?
You must give full credit to Ratheesh Balakrishnan. I was offered Android Kunjappan…
You mean Soubin Shahir’s character?
Yes, but I couldn’t get the nuances and understand the whole thing. Then when it came to theatres, I realised this guy can spring surprises in an intelligent manner. So when he came with the basic story of Nna, Thaan Case Kodu, I knew he will come up with those surprises and nuances in a humorous manner, but with so many layers. And that’s just what happened.
2022 has been great for you. Where do you go from here? Now you are being watched even more closely than earlier.
I guarantee I’ll make more mistakes. (Laughs at length) I’m ready for the flak for that. You will criticise me, throw shit at me, I’m ready for that but I’ll be back with more exciting movies. (He lists out his coming films: read the introduction.)
In terms of genres, Chackochan ini romance cheiyyilla ennaano (is it that Chackochan will not do romance any more) or…?
Illa, illa, romance will be there, but in a different way. There was a different kind of romance or love in Ramante Edanthottam, and I love the character of Raman. I’d like to play such kind of different romances which goes with my age now, not the chocolate boy kind for the 20s. I have to do the romance of the 40s which I haven’t played before.
Read Anna M.M. Vetticad’s reviews of Pada, Ariyippu and Nna, Thaan Case Kodu here:
Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial
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