ALL FOR QUALITY
Shahid Kapoor and filmmaking duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. talk about their new Amazon Prime Video release, Farzi
IN the early days of shooting their second Amazon Prime Video series, Farzi (released on February 10), creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. took time to make sense of Shahid Kapoor’s working style. Kapoor looks back at those days and thinks that he may have appeared “annoying sometimes”. He says, “I was angst-y in my search for Sunny... There were a lot of thoughts in my head.” The filmmakers let the 41-yearold actor do his thing and gradually came to appreciate his ability to keep track of events in the show even though it was not being shot linearly. “The story is quite complex, there’s a lot to it,” says Raj. “He doesn’t look it, but he’s a thinking actor.”
That thinking actor makes his OTT debut with two of the most sought-after filmmakers in India whose thriller series, The Family Man (2019—), was wildly successful. It’s no surprise then that when Raj and D.K. called Kapoor to pitch a film, he instead asked them whether they had a nifty idea for a longer-format storytelling.
In Farzi, Kapoor plays a man revelling in the rewards of making counterfeit notes until the law (read Tamil star Vijay Sethupathi) begins to track his illegal exploits. The flawed genius archetype has its appeal. “Grey characters, if written well, make the audience whistle more than white characters,” says Kapoor. That’s because “they do [things] in an irreverent, naughty, mean, edgy way”, he adds. “They provide an escape to the aam aadmi [common man] who sees someone doing everything they feel like doing but can’t, because they are either scared or stuck with being nice.” However, that’s not to say that Sunny has no redeeming qualities. Says Kapoor, “Every grey character has a kind of goodness and humanity to them.” Part of the challenge for him is to “find what’s human about them while showing everything that might not be typical or nice”.
What makes the world of Farzi more exciting is that it comes with Raj and D.K.’s trademark flourishes—satire, black comedy and quirks, the essential ingredients that made both The Family Man (2019—) and the horror comedy Stree (2018) successful. “They definitely have a certain style
and a personality to the content they create. They take serious situations and find humour in them,” says Kapoor. “Despite being so successful, they are trying to be original and different without losing the elements that make them who they are. I think a lot of people will learn what to do on digital platforms from them.”
Farzi comes at a time when audiences are returning to cinemas and business is back to pre-pandemic levels. It’s a show that Kapoor signed in the aftermath of his own biggest blockbuster, Kabir Singh (2019), in which he played an angry, jilted lover who takes to alcohol and drugs. Having spent two decades in front of the camera, Kapoor values it when “A++ material” comes his way; to him, it doesn’t matter where it is seen so long as it’s a new, challenging character to essay. That his father Pankaj Kapur did the same decades ago, dabbling in theatre, TV shows and films simultaneously, is proof that the multitasking approach works. “All of life is a stage. Just go out there and do what you know how to do,” he says. “Don’t sit with a chip on your shoulder thinking ‘I’m a superstar or a pan-India star’. Those things will come and go.” ■