Rajkumar Yadav got candid about his love for complex characters and offers he has rejected so far Whirlwind promotional tours might get taxing for some actors and filmmakers but Rajkumar Yadav and Hansal Mehta are enjoying chat sessions on their forthcoming film Shahid. The duo paid a visit to our office
The first glimpse of the poster of Shahid grabbed most of our attention. An almost nude Rajkumar Yadav, cuddled in one corner, stuck a chord with both our hearts and memories, sent us to his dark world. So when the actor walked into our office wearing red pants and an equally vibrant smile, most of us took time to digest the change. Yes, we have seen him in other offbeat films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Ragini MMS and Shaitan, but Shahid completely rests on his shoulders and if the interaction with the actor is anything to go by, he certainly has strong shoulders. He is playing the protagonist, noted lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, who was gunned down in Mumbai in 2010. Promotional material of the film reveals the intense character that Yadav is playing and the actor agreed, more than knowing about the physical appearance of Shahid and events in his life, it was important for him to understand his mind. “As an actor it is easy to copy someone’s physical form. The challenge here was to catch his mind and spirit. Honestly, I didn’t know much of him when I walked into Hansal Mehta’s room to talk about the film. But when I was told about his story I was moved and inspired by his life and realised what kind of a human being he was,” shared Yadav.
Coming from the filmmaker Hansal Mehta, the script that Yadav received was a well-researched one. He then started to spend time with Shahid’s family to know more about his life. He also paid visits to the court room to observe the lawyers and legal proceedings. “The character and the research that I did to portray it helped me a lot on a professional and personal level. By the end of his career an actor has four or five films that he is really proud of, this is one film in my career that I will always be proud of. Personally, Shahid has really inspired me as a human being, I have lived his life for over eight or nine months and his ideology has influenced me a lot. His family helped me a lot in knowing about him and I came across the fact that he was always so involved with his work that he never got enough time to spend with his family. Thanks to this film that I learnt to read Namaz and came to know of Quran E Sharif. The makeup man of film Talaash helped me learn a lot about Quran. We shot in Himachal. Within the radius of 200 km, there were no Muslims so they were never exposed to this community. We used local boys to play my terrorist friends. So I trained them how to read Namaz. When people see that shot, they think we shot in Afghanistan,” he said.
Those actors are rare in our industry who would say they enjoy complex characters and Yadav is one of them. He enjoys the challenge of playing such characters. But on the other hand he is open to do masala films, “if the story is different and excites me.” Yadav has been declining more offers after his last film Kai Po Che. He says there is nothing like ‘method actor’ in Bollywood. “There is the Actor’s Studio in New York and they have a process called Method Acting. So people who go there are method actors but in Bollywood people who walk with beard are called method actors. It is a corrupt term. I prefer being called an actor, doing what I like. This is what I wanted to do since childhood and I am glad that I am doing it,” he said.
The actor who passed out from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, says that he credits the institute for making him for what he is today. “I grew there as an actor and we have had brilliant actors coming from FTII in Bollywood. But I realised that when you are in front of camera for your auditions no brand helps you. You only have to perform,” he said and added that there was a time when Bollywood was full of FTII trained actors and now he can see the same happening. “The change is happening slowly as there are many people even now from FTII doing good work,” he added.
The actor concluded by saying that he loves observing people around and draws inspiration from surroundings. “I love performance-oriented films like Master and linclon,” he signed off.