Unlike his contemporaries, Neil Nitin Mukesh has carved a niche for himself in tinsel town for choosing unconventional roles and breaking the family profession of singing. In a freewheeling chat with Shrabasti Mallik, he shared why he decided to debut with Johnny Gaddar and about his forthcoming Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
While most of your contemporaries made a love story debut you chose Johnny Gaddaar…
There’s an interesting story behind how Johnny Gaddar happened. For the first two years of my life, I ran from pillar to post meeting every director, who met me because I was Mukhesh’s grandson. But nothing materialised until I met Jhamu Sughand at a party which I attended at my father’s place. He asked me to meet him and offered me Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na and Johnny Gaddar. He asked me to go and read both. I loved Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na — it was beautifully written. And then I read Johnny Gaddar. Now I was convinced that I wanted to do Johnny Gaddar.
Firstly, it would garner a lot of attention. I would be making a debut in a movie which is completely unconventional. Secondly, I would get a lot of scope for performance — a good guy going bad and all the grey shades.
I wanted everyone to pay heed to one thing clearly, which was that irrespective of stardom please take notice of me as an actor. And co-incidentally, one of my dear family friends came to me and said, ‘First become a star, acting can come later’. I am not a rebel by nature, I like following what I believe in. So if I have to follow people and instructions, I will first evaluate and understand them myself. I then said no, I don’t want to do that. Stardom is very short-lived. You are a star today, you are nobody tomorrow. But an actor will be an actor for the rest of his life.
I went against my family, who wanted me to debut with a love story, and did Johnny Gaddar which was almost shelved for financial constraints. But it finally came through and the rest is history. My father, who did not talk to me for five months, came and hugged me and told me how proud he was.
Actors now are running behind fame and acting has taken a back seat. It is very short-lived. It probably might garner you a few eyeballs and attention now but just like the way our old songs are evergreen and long-lived, similarly those people who cater too performances will live and be remembered forever.
Do you sing as wellIJ Anything that we may have heard…
Of course, I do sing. I am a pianist — I compose and I sing. But if you compare me to my father and grandfather, no I am not as learned as them.
The songAa Dekhe Zara from my movie Aa Dekhe Zara, that’s me. Gaurav Das Gupta and I programmed it and I sung the song. From Jail you have Saiyan Ve, it’s a beautiful track but unfortunately it did not pick up as much. It’s more of a club song and was very popular during that time.
Also what started happening at that time was that the media started questioning me to much about whether I wanted to be a singer or an actor, quite unfortunately. If I did not belong to such a strong legacy of music and sang then, they would have said, he can sing also. But because I am Mukhesh’s grandson, the question was whether I wanted to sing or act became very prominent. So I decided not to sing right away. I will sing a little later. let people first accept me and understand that my first priority is acting then I will probably sing. Now there are so many actors who sing their songs but they do not have a legacy that confuses people in their work profile. like Ayushmann who sings his songs, Farhan, too, is a singer but they do not have a legacy that would confuse people as much as like changing a profession entirely.
All the characters that you have played have been starkly different from the other. How do you choose the rolesIJ
I sit and evaluate a couple of things. I never go by how many scenes it has, I never see the length or whether the role is big or small. For me, it is not the length of the role but about its strength. So if my character is strong and he is somewhere instrumental in making the story move ahead, I go ahead with it. If you remove my character the story will halt.
In Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, my character is interesting that if you remove it, you will be lost. It’s always choosing a character which is important and is a driver of the script.
What was Prem Ratan Dhan Payo likeIJ
It is perhaps my biggest learning experience of my life. I learnt a lot from Sooraj Barjatya — the art of patience, the art of humility and understanding. I have been working since the age of four, I was a child star, and then I did a lot of theatre in school and college. Then I became an assistant director with Yash Raj Films for five years and worked on Mujhse Dosti Karoge and did a lot of production work, too. I did a lot of leg work. Now I have dome almost 21 films and I guess I am the youngest actor to have worked with 14 National award winning directors from Sriram Raghavan to Sudhir Mishra, Pradip Sarkar to Vishal Bhardwaj and Kabir Khan to Madhur Bhandarkar. So, with this bandwidth of directors, with every director having his own temperament of working, an actor, in nature also tends to become a little irritable. When you are at a set, the atmosphere is always rushed up. There is a lot of tension behind the scenes of a film and most of my films are action oriented drama so something or the other is up with it.
I came on the sets of PRDP and I said, ‘My God it is such a big film’. I could not find Sooraj ji and then I found him in the middle of every activity and handling everything so beautifully. Throughout the film, he would be always on the floors. Every department was being handled by him personally. I have never heard him scream or shout. He was always so calm and composed. Working with him has cleansed me, purified me and made me more patient. Work needs happiness, patience and politeness. And that I have learnt it from him. I think his movies reflect the kind of person he is.
What about Salman KhanIJ
He is a fantastic man. He is like an elder brother both on-screen and off-screen. I think the reason why relationships in the movie have come out so well is because he took our responsibility off-screen as well. He held the entire family very closely together for year-and-a-half that we have been working for. He is such a big personality and at the same time, he is such a simple, down to earth man. He is very relaxed and is actually like a big baby. He’s a strong man but has a very soft heart. Once you understand him, then irrespective of anything else you will only love him.
How do you prepare for your charactersIJ All your characters have a back story…
I think the most important thing about doing a film is to understand the situation of the character. And all my characters have a back story. That is a little bit of a method that I have applied since the beginning to choose films.
The preparation of a character happens through a process. You read a story, understand your character and are ready for the part — that is one approach. The other is to understand why is he like thisIJ What made him the way he isIJ The moment you understand that everything is clear.
Maybe the character was a happy-go-lucky guy and during his childhood, something must have triggered him and turned him into this irritable young man. So when you understand them, you have an emotional connect with your character which you portray on screen. If you notice beyond the back story, I always make sure that irrespective of whether I am a nice guy or a bad character, a grey character or a pure soul, I will always portray my grey characters on-screen with an emotional connect.
If you closely see my character in 7 Khoon Maaf, he was deeply and madly in love with the woman. It was because he loved her so much that when he lost his leg, he became complex. He started feeling insecure. His insecurities led him to question her integrity and because of that he became a character of that nature. Now you pull the story back from the present situation of this guy, probably eight years before, he’d have probably been a guy who woke up every morning and bring her breakfast in bed. He’d be the same guy who would probably go to the garden and pluck the first rose and get it for her while making sure that the thorns are cut so that she doesn’t prick her fingers. He would have been all that, but now that same army officer is so aggressive that just because another man took her name, he goes and bashes his head in the mirror. That’s the nature of the character and why he became like that. But the emotional connect was that he loved her very much; he wanted to have a baby with her.
Similarly, you see Johnny Gaddar, just because he was so madly in love with this girl that he couldn’t stand her being tortured by her husband that he decides to double cross his own gang members, take the loot and run away. If it wasn’t for love, he would not have done that.
Players is the only movie, I won’t lie, where my character does not have a back story and does not have an emotional connect. He is pure evil about wanting the money and saying goodbye.
I personally feel that the audience somewhere relates to your characters, they remember you by your characters and it is important for the audience to fall in love with you especially when you are playing a bad character. You know why I do anti or grey charactersIJ Because in person, I don’t think I will ever be able to do it. It’s like venting out what probably I can’t do in real life, on-screen. And most people seem to like that. But irrespective of good or bad, it’s important that an actor connects with his audience. For me I don’t see my grey characters as bad; I see them as a connect point with an audience. Somewhere or the other, everyone will relate to the characters I portray on-screen.
Did you always want to become an actorIJ
I can’t think of any other profession that I ever wanted to be in, never. I was four-years-old, when I started acting and ever since, that’s the only thing in life that I wanted to do, I don't know anything else. If not an actor, I would have become a director or a musician but would have remained associated with films. I have grown up only on Raj Kapoor films because of my grandfather. So for me filmmakimg is fascinating; it’s like magic.
What's magical about itIJ
As kids, my sister and I would go and spend the weekend with my grandmother. But, I being the naughty one I would tell her that you have to give me something only then I would stay and I wanted to see Raj Kapoor films. She never argued and would always put in on. I probably have seen all Raj Kapoor films like a 100 times. I grew up on those films and was so fascinated with that world. One day I saw trophies and asked my grandmother who they belonged to. She said that it was my grandfather’s who was a singer. I did not know who a singer was then and when she tried explaining that he sang for Raj ji, I did not believe her because I believed that it was Raj Kapoor singing those songs. I held on to that belief till I did a film called Vijay where I had to lip-sync the song Akkad Bakkad Bambe Bo. I went back to her and said, ‘I know what my grandfather did and my father does. Play me one of his songs.’ And she played Ek Din Bik Jayega and I lip-synced.