Two powerhouse performers, Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi, come together again a second time in Newton. By Saimi Sattar
It is rare for a movie to hold a preview (which usually happens a day before) a good three days before its actual release. Not unless the makers are confident of their product. Amit Masurkar’s Newton did just that and wowed the audience.
With a stellar cast, National Award winner, Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Sanjai Mishra, the film revolves around polling in a Naxal-hit area. “We are proud of the film and the kind of response we have been getting from the international audience and that has made us very confident. Also there is curiosity about it inside and outside the industry. Moreover, this is not a 100 crore film and the best way to create awareness is to show it to people who can talk about it,” asserts Rao.
It was Manish Mundhra, the producer of Newton who called Rao, asking him to come on board for the movie. “I read the script and liked it as it is a great story with a great character portrayal. You can actually feel that you are going in the middle of Chattisgarh to shoot with some locals,” says Rao. Since he plays the role of a presiding officer, Nutan Kumar who changes his name to Newton, Rao had to learn a lot about the technical procedure of holding an election. “There is a manual for the presiding officer. Amit (Masurkar) provided me a lot of details as he had researched not just the whole process but also the story and the area where we were placed. It was a very well researched and a well-written script. My only job was to portray the honesty that my character is carrying and the principles that he stands for,” he added.
Pitted opposite him is Pankaj Tripathi, known for delivering powerhouse performances in movies like Gangs of Wasseypur I and II, Masaan, Nil Battey Sannata, Anaarkali of Aarah and most recently in Bareilly Ki Barfi. Tripathi plays a CRPF commandant who heads a team of 40 people, providing security which is needed to hold an election in a sensitive area. “The role is interesting because it is grey. He has a lot of experience as he has worked in sensitive places,” says Tripathi. He points out that the character says, “Take it in writing that no one will be coming to vote.” And on the other hand there is Rao’s character which doesn’t listen to the commandant. “This creates a conflict that lasts throughout the movie,” he says. What makes it interesting according to Tripathi is the fact that the movie does not take sides. “Both of them and their thoughts are valid. There are undercurrents of subtle humour, throughout the film. The comedy, that we often see in-between life’s absurdities can be experienced in the movie,” says Tripathi.
Tripathi often injects his own brand of satire in his characters which he attributes to him being a student of literature and a Bihari, who he believes are “politically aware”. He says, “Often in movies, I say one line which can be taken at its face value or people can understand it at different levels. In this I added one which says, Bhoot pakad kar laya hoon. Someone will think that it is normal line. But it can be interpreted at many levels. Bhootkal (past) Bhaagte bhoot ki langoti (Something is better than nothing).”
For the role, Tripathi did some research to understand the power play and the extent of his jurisdiction. “I spoke to a relative who is a commandant in the navy to understand the hierarchy and also to a friend who is a District Magistrate to know the limit of his powers. But it is certainly a very well-written script and didn’t need many tools.”
Tripathi says that the story hasn’t been taken from Google. The writer, Mayank Tiwari and Amit met election officers, naxals and villagers, which added that extra bit of authenticity to the script.
The movie is set in Chattisgarh in a small kasba which has two hotels with 10 rooms each, where the cast was put up during the 40 days when the movie was shot. It also has 40-50 new actors — tribals as well as theatre actors from places like Bhilai and Raipur.
In the movie, the Election Commission says that there will be an election while naxals say that there won’t be one. And the 70 voters in the constituency are caught between the crossfire and do not know what to do.
Rao says, every movie, including Newton has been a growing up process for him. “I am a different person from what I was before Shahid,City lights, Bose or Newton because you go to such extreme places, you meet so many wonderful people that it gives you a different perspective towards life. You evolve as a person. I can definitely say that about myself, I am a better human being,” says Rao.
Tripathi too agrees. For him, acting is a journey. “I just know how to drive and there could be rocky terrains, deserts, new kind of food and people who I encounter during the journey,” he says. But there is one thing that he is sure about that the journey of acting, it enriches him as a person. “If I give something to the character, the character too gives something to me personally in my life and in my personality. There is growth,” he says.
There is another growth and change which both the actors agree is certainly a positive development in the industry. Rao says, “The exposure to Netflix and Amazon has helped the youth compare and understand good content. And they want the same in Indian movies too.”
Tripathi too agrees. “I was a student in the 90s and the cinemas that I cried over at that time, now I laugh over them. These were such false emotions. The change happened because of internet, as the youth has access to world cinema and can tell good content from bad,” says Tripathi.
A change can be perceived in the way characters are being constructed now. In Bareilly ki Barfi, Tripathi’s role of a father is one which has been seen for the first time in Hindi movies. “He is a progressive father. He knows that his daughter smokes but he does not judge her character by that. He also says that in future, she will drink. He doesn’t tell her not to, but just to be careful about her health,” he says.
Rao too feels that the subaltern connect that was seen in the movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee about small time characters, small time India is coming back. “Majority of people live in small towns and not in metros. So the masses connect organically with these films,” says the 32-year-old actor.
Rao brings his own brand of making the character more relatable to many of the roles that he plays. “It is a process that I apply that makes the character very relatable. I try to make it somebody people can connect to. I want people to believe the character and not make it look fake. They should see it and say, ‘this guy exists or I have seen a guy like this,’” he says.
Incidentally, Rao so impressed Amitabh Bachchan with his performance in Bareilly, that he sent a handwritten congratulatory note and a bouquet of flowers to the actor. And this was when the character was not considered too excruciating as compared to the ones that he has done recently. Of late, though Rao has been through a lot of hard work. “Every character has its own challenges. The kind of hard work that I had to put in Trapped would not be the same as in Bareilly ki Barfi, as I had to go through a lot of physical transformation,” he says. He lost weight drastically for the Vikramaditya Motwani movie where he survived on a diet of two carrots and a black coffee for 20-22 days. Switch over to Bose, a web series, he had to gain 11 kgs and shave off his head partially rather than rely on prosthetics.
But what determines his choice of working across different platformsIJ “When I sign up a film, I do not think how many people are going to watch it. That is beyond my control. All I can think about is how can I grow as an actor,” he says. When he was approached for Bose, he thought it was a great opportunity to play an iconic character like Netaji. The actor loves to do biopics as he likes bringing reality where one plays a real characters. Next up, he is collaborating with his Shahid director Hansal Mehta for Omerta, which recounts the real-life story of the infamous British-born terrorist, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who kidnapped and murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Rao says, “I love to play grey characters. I am not scared about being bracketed. In Omerta, I am playing a character which is absolutely black. There is not even a tinge of white. It is boring to play good guys all the time. There is always fun when there is a layer attached to a character,” he says. For Rao, it is the scripts which are important. I am always looking for something exciting or different to do. By chance if I get a Trapped or Shahid or Newton, I just jump. For me fame money is secondary. It is the story, the content and how much I can push myself as an actor that are important,” he says.
But talking about acting chops, it is easy to lead into the controversy that Bollywood has been all agog with — nepotism, thanks to Kangana Ranaut, Rao’s co-actor in Queen. “I want to see talent on screen. it does not matter where it is coming from. I want to see worthy people on screen. If somebody is not talented or not worthy and still I have to see him or her because of where she comes from, then that is a problem,” he says.
Another controversy that has dogged the industry of late is that of censorship inside and outside the censor board. Tripathi says, “Cinema should be kept separate from politics and politicians should be away from films. Story tellers should be able to tell a story and the censor board should certify that it has adult content, if any. People would reject bad content themselves.”
But going by the rave reviews of their movie, Newton is likely to exercise a strong gravitational pull on its viewers.
Photos: Pankaj Kumar