Shakti Kapoor is a busy man with not one but six back-to-back releases, starting this December. He will be donning six different avatars and Kapoor is excited about doing so at this point in his career. The modest actor tells Sangeeta Yadav that he is happy to be offered plumb roles even at this age. He only hopes the audiences like him in the new variety he has to offer
Shakti Kapoor has a lot on his plate at the moment and he is happy man. Just the thought that he has so many offers lined up, gives this 56-year-old an all-time high. Best part, he tells you, is that the roles are myriad and the banners are as big as they could get. Sample this: Kapoor plays a scientist in a thriller titled No Exit, a village doctor in an art film Bhuri, café owner in Shimla Mirchi, a dhongi baba in Pareshaanpur, fashion designer in Mumbai Can Dance Saala and a father in Kya Super Kool Hai Hum 3.
“Impressive noIJ,” Shakti Kapoor enquires modestly. Starting from December until April 2015, the iconic but loveable villain of Bollywood is going to be seen in six releases. “I am hoping that people accept me in these different avatars. I am enjoying this phase and I want to do a lot more good films,” he tells you.
Out of all these films, Bhuri is one which is closest to Kapoor’s heart. Based on a true story that happened in a village of South Africa in 1994, Bhuri is about a situation where 80 per cent of the workers suffer from HIV. “This is a very hard hitting art film about workers at a brick making factory who discover that they are suffering from HIV. There is a girl who comes from the city and gets married to a farmer, who is supposed to be the main person spreading this disease. I play a doctor who treats these patients and becomes a victim of the deadly virus in the end,” Kapoor says. He tells you that shooting in a village and working in an art canvass was an amazing experience.
After Shyam Benegal’s Zubeida, this is Kapoor’s second art film. “I have done around 700 commercial films and I am finally being offered art roles. Naseeruddin Shah and I go back to the FTII days. I remember there was a time when Shah told me that he wanted to do a masala film and I told him that I wanted to act in an art movie. Today, we both have realised that dream,” he recalls.
In No Exit, Kapoor dons the Albert Einstein look and to good effect. “This one is a spine chilling thriller. A group of 10 couples rent an apartment to play the wife-swapping game. When they accidently open a scientist’s laboratory, all hell breaks loose,” Kapoor tells you.
He is also looking forward to sharing screen space with Hema Malini for the sixth time in Ramesh Sippy’s Shimla Mirchi. “Hemaji is an amazing woman. She still looks like an angel and aisa lagta hai ki unko ummar aati he nahi. I used to sit next to her and gaze her non-stop. And she would say in her typical South Indian ascent ‘Ooohhh Shakteay’,” he says.
Pareshaanpur is a comedy based on how a dhongi baba comes to a village and loots the entire township, Kya Super Kool Hai Hum 3 is a laugh riot about a father who gets married twice and throws his son (played by Tushaar Kapoor) out of the house and family business. The son goes to Thailand to pursue acting.
Donning a fashion designer’s role in Mumbai Can Dance Saala (scheduled for December 28 release), Kapoor explains that not all fashion designers are gay. But because they are surrounded with women at all times, their body language and mannerisms becomes effeminate.
“As a fashion designer of a reputed brand, I take it upon myself to promote a young girl from a village to become a dancer. While he is labelled to be a gay, my character is not so. In the film, my character clarifies this via a dialogue — ‘ladkiyo ke kapde banate banate mai toh aadha ladki bha chukka hu.’ But people are going to enjoy this character,” Kapoor signs off.
