Making a point

Actor Sharad Kelkar, who lent his voice for Prabhas in Baahubali, reveals his biggest stumbling block to success before

Recently having again captured audiences’ attention as Arvind in the second season of The Family Man, actor Sharad Kelkar has come a long way from his TV actor days to playing memorable roles in films such as the 2013-film Goliyon Ki Leela RaasleelaRamLeela, 2016-film Mohenjo Daro and the

2020-films Laxmii and Tanhaji: The Unsung Hero.

What not many know is that success to this actor, who’d lent his voice for Prabhas for the hit Baahubali series, came after many years of being bullied for a bad stammer he had.

Besides his latest release

Bhuj: The Pride of India, Sharad has a long list of films waiting release in 2021, including a solo lead role in Deja Vu, a psychological thriller about a man experiencing certain incidents every day. He is also set to debut in the Southern sector with the Tamil film Ayalaan.

Excerpts from the interview

Would you want to dub for any more of Prabhas’ films?

Now Prabhas dubs for himself. He is dubbing for Radhe Shyam also.

Not many know you used to have a huge stammering problem. Yes, I had stammering hiccups, which was a huge hindrance in my life. Even today, there are a few words I cannot pronounce.

But my wife, who was also involved in theatres, helped me a lot during those days. While some say that trying to speak with marbles in your mouth can help one overcome stammering, for me proper breathing is what helped me speak well.

It’ll sound clichéd but I followed Bachchan Sa’ab. Not many have noticed that during his dialogue delivery, he takes pauses at the correct places. I realised he was using his breath well, noting that while delivering all his big sentences or sometimes even after one word he’d take a pause, as is essential.

You’re debuting in Tamil with Ayalaan. Are other southern languages in your radar too? Speaking of southern films, I am all praises for south-Indian filmmakers. They believe in taking risks and have huge budgets, thus making Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films well known all over the globe. That’s very unlike the Marathi filmmakers who, despite the rich literature their land has, fail to take risks. Also, they don’t have huge budgets.

Given you dubbed for Prabhas in the Hindi version of Baahubali, did you dub your own dialogues in Ayalaan? Ayalaan is my debut Tamil film and no, I won’t dub for myself in it.