WHEN ALI HAD TO DOA‘BAKWAS’FILM
Actor Ali Fazal says at one point in his life, he came close to taking up projects he didn’t like because he didn’t have much money
He has acted in Bollywood films such as Fukrey (2013), 3 Idiots (2009) and Happy Bhag Jayegi (2016), and in the West, he has to his credit films such as Furious 7 (2015) and Victoria & Abdul (2017). But Ali Fazal reveals that choosing films, initially, was tough for him.
“After 3 idiots (in which his character sings Give Me Some Sunshine), half the films that came to me were ‘sir, guitar’ ‘sir, musician, the story is really good’! A template was made. You are your last Friday, as it’s famously said,” says Ali.
He goes on to confess that he nearly rejected Fukrey, which went on to become a sleeper hit.
“I went to my director Mrigdeep Singh Lamba and said ‘I would make a bigger impact, make my character mute, I’ll have more fun in it’. He said ‘arre, kya yaar, saalon se likh raha hoon script, I can’t change it…’ I feel that someone who’s lighting the room has a far more intricate job than what I did. I think I did a very average job. I didn’t watch it,” adds Ali, who also starred in the sequel, Fukrey Returns (2017), which crossed the ~100crore mark.
“The sequel did well, and both were big hits. It’s a winwin, it’s never a loss for an actor,” says Ali, who was recently seen in the web series Mirzapur.
There came a time when he had to take up projects because he didn’t have any money in his bank account. “It’s okay, we shouldn’t get worried about that. There was a time when I didn’t have damn money in my account! I had to do the next film, thinking ‘shit, I gotta pay rent’. I had to refuse a film thinking ‘I have read the script five times, it’s shit, and I am not going to accept the money which will probably last me for six years! I can’t, that’s selling my soul’ but I’ve done that. I had five grand in my account, mera dimaag hil gaya tha. That film is now on a streaming platform, I don’t know how,” says Ali.
We ask him whether the film worked when it finally released. “Bakwaas film thi, so it was a great decision!,” signs off a laughing Ali.