Actor Sonu Sood extends his oeuvre with his character in Simmba. By Team Viva
For actor Sonu Sood, 2019 promises to be a good year. He is waiting for the release of Simmba which will be only three days old when the New Year kicks in. He plays Durga, the most powerful guy in Goa who is a foil to Ranveer (Singh). “I have not played a character which is similar before. Despite it being a negative one, there’s a positive side to it as well. The kind of layering that Rohit Shetty has done is quite commendable,” he says.
Following this, he will be heading back to the South to complete his Kannada film and two other releases which are lined up for later next year. “My production house has got the rights of a film on PV Sandhu so that too needs to be worked upon,” says he.
For Sood, there are some things which are essential while signing up for a film. On top of the list is the script. “There might be big production houses but when it comes to the script, it might not always be something that you want to do. It’s a tough call to take but I always believe that if the script and the role is not as per your taste, there’s no point landing it,” he says. Whenever he chooses a role, in the order, he looks at the script first, then the director and then the producer.
For the actor, the decision is often taken in the first five minutes when he first hears the script. “When I sat for the narration of Simmba, I was hoping for it to be the kind of role I was waiting for since the last few years. When the narration begun, I knew that Durga is me and that this is a role that I’ll enjoy playing. I felt that the role was challenging. I have done films in various languages including Kannada, Telugu and Tamil but have never played a Marathi character in a Hindi film.”
However, despite carefully choosing films, there is no surety of it being a hit on box office, as he believes. Sood says, “I wish there was a formula to choose the right script which would say, ‘do this and you’ll succeed.’ Most of the actors just follow their instinct.”
He believes that going by the trends this year focus on the content has certainly increased. Sood says, “The change was long overdue. There was a phase when content-driven work was not being noticed, which gave leverage to filmmakers who took the audience for granted. We have to make good cinema to pull the people to the theatres. I’m glad that this year was a learning process for a lot of filmmakers and actors. It is because of the audience that there is this emphasis on good scripts.”
Many feel that the change and improvement in the content of Hindi films has come about due to digital platforms, which have practically exploded with fresh storylines, new content and actors extending their oeuvre further. The actor says, “It has challenged actors and filmmakers because people now have easy access to good performances and content. So you have to make something good which can be compared to those high-in-content web shows.”
It has helped in other ways as well. “It has provided a lot of job opportunities to different actors. If you are good, you are bound to get busy. It’s challenging to stay there. I would say the competition has become very tough. But the opportunities have increased.”
Sood is not just known on account of his work in the Hindi film industry but has acted in many movies down South. So how easy or difficult is it to mouth dialogues in a language that one is not familiar with? He answers, “You never actually get too comfortable with the language. Moreover, you have to take care that the expressions and the timing are right. I derived this formula where I make the assistant director say the line before me,” says Sood who has done almost 65-70 films and believes he is a professional now. And in the process, he has started understanding the languages quite a bit, “I don’t know these languages completely but I do understand them now.”
Another leap of faith that he had taken was turning into a producer when he launched Shakti Sagar Productions, which is named after his father, in 2016. He says, “As a producer, I would know how actors function. And as an actor, I know what does a producer want. It’s good to experience both the sides. It helps you develop on an individual level too. I’m glad I have stood at both the sides,” he says as he signs off.