Actor Ali Asgar, who has just dubbed for the Hindi version of Despicable Me 3, clarifies that he has nothing against Kapil Sharma and exited the show because of creative differences and lack of character growth. Aakriti Narang listens in
Whether it be the ubiquitious grandma or whichever gender he is playing, you know you’re in for a good time when Ali Asgar’s face comes on television. Having set a benchmark for popular comedy, he is now desperate to break cliches. And that’s why he has now dubbed for the Hindi version of Despicable Me 3.
He would have us believe that the offer came out of the blue. “Ashim Samanta and I had worked together in a serial called Dil Vil Pyaar Vyaar. I received a phone call from him for doing a voice test. I hadn’t met him for quite some time anyway, so I thought I would go and see him and have a cup of coffee as well. At least that was the intention. I had expected the voice testing to be for some small television series. But he told me I had to Indianise Gru’s character from Despicable Me 3. He asked me for my preference of tone, accent and dialect. I chose to make Gru Punjabi because that would give me the chance to add some quirks. After rehearsing around 12 lines, I was told that Gru had a brother called Dru and I had to try speaking his lines as well. I agreed to that too, thinking it was all just for fun. Four or five days later, I got a call from him again saying that my voice had been finalised. In the film Dru is shown to be quite a clever character, which is why I’ve given him a lucknow accent. By repeatedly saying ‘Ji bhai jaan’ he gets his work done.”
Asgar amusingly confirms that half of all his projects are unplanned. “Whatever I plan goes wrong. So I go with the flow. I had some problems at the beginning; getting into the frame of mind for dubbing was one of them. I would have to dub for four or five hours straight. It used to get a bit boring but then later on I enjoyed it to such an extent that I’d be thinking about the character even at home. I wondered if I could have said things in a different tone to have more of a comedic effect. I would even think about individual words that I’d said and if those could be replaced by something catchier. My passion for and admiration of dubbing grew so much that today I would recommend every actor to try dubbing at least once in their career.”
One would assume that Asgar watched cartoons to gain inspiration for doing something that he’s never done before. On the contrary, he says, “I’m not interested in cartoons at all. My kids watch cartoons at home like Doraemon and Pokemon. I have no idea about these. My generation has grown up watching Gurdas Maan on television. We have no idea about who Doraemon is. Even when I was younger, children’s cartoons had never been my genre. I have grown up watching Mehmood Ali’s films. First of all, I do such roles to impress my kids. I did a TV series called Jeannie Aur Juju. At that time, I had been playing female characters in Comedy Circus way too frequently. I was having dinner with my son on a Saturday night and the semi-final of Comedy Circus was airing on TV. I don’t remember the anchor’s name but I do remember that I was paired with Kapil Sharma in that episode. So the anchor announced our names with our characters in the following way: Kapil as Tabalchi and Ali as Jamuna Bai. As soon as she uttered those last two words, my son shot me a glare that I can only describe as being very scary. He asked me ‘Don’t you know anything elseIJ Is this all you can do: play female charactersIJ’ I didn’t know how to respond. I was playing a female character in the Sunday episode of that season too!”
Contrary to perception, Asgar says that playing female characters is not something that comes naturally to him. “It’s not something that I specifically enjoy doing. Comedy Circus was a competition and when you are in a competition, the only thing you think about is winning. When the desire to win the competition becomes your priority, what character you play becomes a secondary thing. What matters is pulling together an act that can make the audience and the judges laugh. It’s also much easier for the writers to assign a female role to a male actor because that guarantees immediate laughter.”
Having donned female characters year after year in Comedy Circus, and then permanently being made into Dadi in Comedy nights with Kapil followed by Nani in The Kapil Sharma Show, Asgar says he wants change. “Frankly speaking, I don’t want to play female parts anymore. I don’t get to have so much of a say in this. The channel has a research team which finds out whether the majority wants to see me in a certain role or not and it is with the help of results from such studies that a character is decided. In 17 out of 21 episodes, I was playing a female character. After that, I refused to comply. Due to this, I was out of work for six months. Then Rajiv Mehra called me up for being a part of Jeannie Aur Juju. I grabbed the opportunity because I wanted to win my children’s heart. The unfortunate thing for actors is that we don’t get the freedom to choose the roles we want to play. I have a desire to play multiple roles; now that I’ve played a lot of female characters I want to do something different. As a matter of fact, when I had started my career doing comedy films, no one was offering me drama as a genre. Thereafter when Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki started, nobody offered me comic roles. For eight years, I was restricted to wearing a kurta pyjama and saying Haan babu ji, Na babu ji.”
Speaking about his exit from The Kapil Sharma Show, Asgar says it was due to creative differences. He elaborates: “Creative differences just mean that I felt my character was not having any growth in the show. A character is built by adding nuances to it. These nuances come from old films, your relatives or even your paani puri seller and they could be either their physical appearance, way of talking, walking or anything else. Dadi for example was weak in the knees and she desperately wanted a grandson. Dadi’s character is based on my maasi, not so much in the way she looks or walks but rather, in her flirtatious manner. My maasi is a flirt, but only through her words. She’s the kind of person who keeps the atmosphere light and cheerful and that’s how I wanted Dadi to be. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I am open to working with Kapil again. I haven’t had any fight with him. After I didn’t receive any response regarding the lack of growth of my character, I thought it would be best to leave.”
According to Asgar, television no longer has the same charm today as it used to earlier. “The audience needs to see some change now as their demands have diversified. It has become difficult to pin down one thing that everyone will love to watch. I remember, when Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki had ended, it had a TRP of 8.75. Nowadays, even the best serial has a TRP of only 5. The trend has shifted towards watching weekend shows.”
Asgar says he is doing a project with Sony channel in the future. More recently, in the Super Night with Tubelight episode, he will be seen playing two or three different characters alongside Salman Khan.