‘I got bored with my comfort zone’
Ranbir excited about his first dual role in Shamshera
Ranbir Kapoor is playing a larger-than-life hero in the action entertainer Shamshera — and a double role at that. “When the narration was over, I knew for a fact that I had to be a part of the film,” says the actor.
Explaining how things fell in place, Ranbir says, “After I heard the script, I realised that the father’s role was also very interesting and I got greedy and wanted to do that as well. The director Karan Malhotra took a lot of convincing that I could do the role of the father as well, as I had to bring a certain maturity to the character. Earlier, they didn’t think that the same guy could play both the characters. I also had to undergo a lot of look tests. I am happy Karan Malhotra allowed me to do both the roles.”
“This is the first time I am playing a double role! The two characters are different and unique but in their hearts and their heads they are very similar,” he says, adding, “The transition from Shamshera to Balli was very interesting.”
Ranbir also reveals an interesting detail of Balli, the son, in Shamshera — he says, “While Shamshera is a part of a tribe, the leader of the tribe, Balli, is born in the prison of Kaza!” Shamshera fights for his tribe to be free.
About his intense Shamshera look which includes some grey hair, Ranbir says, “We greyed him a bit because he was in his late 30s or early 40s. It’s the same actor who is playing both these parts and both had to look distinctively different.”
This seems to be Ranbir’s year, with two big films — Shamshera and Brahmastra — releasing within a short space of each other. “We spent two years on Shamshera and many years on Brahmastra. Even when Sanju was being made, a lot of people expressed doubts about how I would play the character; but we did make it happen,” the actor says.
“The films are not about me. They’re a collective of so many people and a lot of hard work goes in. It is not about a formula. If everyone had a formula, everyone would have been Mukesh Ambani. Making an audience watch a big budget masala entertainer like Shamshera is tough — you have to get everything right and hope that the audience is entertained,” he asserts.
Incidentally Ranbir’s father Rishi Kapoor has played double roles many times in films like Raaja, Rahi Badal Gaye, Banjaaran, Bol Radha Bol and Karobar.
Though Hindi films are not doing too well now, Ranbir feels they’ll be back on track soon.
“As far as movies are concerned it is an art and if you want people to go to the movies, you have to give them a larger experience which is* not going to be available on TV,” he says.
The actor is now looking to do roles that are different from his earlier ones.
“I got bored with my comfort zone and felt that after 15 years here I should keep challenging myself and pushing boundaries. No director saw me like that and I am glad that Karan did, and give me not a coming of age or a romantic role, but a film like Shamshera. The film has the potential to make it big and people will enjoy the experience,” he adds.
Ranbir also says he could not have travelled the road alone. “It was very hard for me. Karan held my hand. I am not an angry person and the character of Balli has a lot of angst in him. I am a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky guy and he wanted to get anger out of me. He even started physically roughing me up to see if I would get angry and dig deep. While everything was only on paper, at one point I told him that I could not handle the physical and mental stress and I could not do the film. That was perhaps when I asked God to give me something to get through the effort. I could not have done it without a director like Karan,” avers the actor.