‘Vidya Balan is the Salman Khan, she is the hero and heroine put together in the movie,’ says Chunky Pandey. By Jeffrin Francis
His stars in Bollywood may have deserted him but his behaviour continues to be that of a star. Having played the funny man for over two decades, Chunky Pandey has gravitated towards the murkier shades of grey. In his latest venture, the 80-film-old veteran has portrayed an antihero character named Kabir in the forthcoming film Begum Jaan, and is eagerly waiting to surprise his audience when the film hits the screens today.
Director Srijit Mukherji had complete faith in Chunky to bring about the essential amount of evil that was required for the movie. Pandey said Mukherji had observed a shade of malevolence even in his comic act, and that is evident when one watches the Begum Jaan trailer.
Pandey’s character in the film is the pure face of evil. It’s a known fact that good and evil are two sides of the same coin. And like art imitates life, it is evil that hold the society captive to concepts of morality and conscience. Good may come and go but evil will always be there to chip away at it. “That is why my character Kabir is darker than all my other characters,” quips Pandey.
“I love to do comedy roles but everyone knows that no-one can have biryani all his life,” the 54-year-old actor says after pondering for a few more seconds.
When asked to talk about his art, he says, “My characters are a blend of two, three other characters. If I have to play a Nepali character, I infuse a bit of Bengali into the character to make it more relatable for the audience.”
Rather than being a lead in the movie, he prefers to come up with characters that are relatable and loved by the audience. He also mentions that he now hunts for roles that can be remembered by people and not merely wait to cherrypick lengthier roles. “I have gone through the motions — the hero-centric as well as the contrary, but now I am in my golden zone of my life. The box office, the collection and the results do not depend on me, I just want to go there and enjoy myself to the fullest. We as actors do not know whether we are working in a hit film or a flop one but each one of us tries to give our 100 per cent to the movie.”
When gently reminded that no actor can transcend a movie, he said he has been lucky that people have always remembered his roles irrespective of how the movie has fared critically or commercially.
Pandey then excitedly talks about his anti-hero character in Begum Jaan and the lengths he went to make this character a memorable one.
“There is no ‘Chunky Pandey’ in it (Kabir, the character). Kabir is a completely new personality and has nothing in common with my previous characters. I had chop off my long locks. I had to blacken my teeth and shoot with snakes and scorpions.”
When our conversation veers towards Vidya Balan, Pandey quickly surmises that she is the “Salman Khan of the film.”
She is the hero and the heroine of the film. Right from her first movie Parineeta to now, she has left the audience in awe. But it’s not just about her. Everybody in the unit gave their all. I loved Gauahar Khan and Pallavi Sharda’s performance too.”
Pandey also reminisced the old days when Bollywood was a simpler existence. “Earlier Bollywood releases did not have so much hype. But now it has huge budgets, everything is meticulously planned which has given the film industry a more professional touch,” he said.
What’s in the pipelineIJ He says he’s doing a bilingual film (Hindi and Telugu).
When he see us surprised, he says, “I love to experiment. If you can’t re-invent yourself, you might as well experiment and then re-invent yourself.”