Mumbai, January 16: There are few actors in this country who have left a suitable impression across segments of moviegoers, that too without getting a starring role in a film.
Kunal Kapoor is an exception to the rule, in more ways than one.
The dishy actor shares Koel’s red couch, despite having hurt his back, and he hopes to earn brownie points for it.
Kapoor says he hurt his back while training in kalaripayattu , Kerala’s martial dance form, for Anurag Kashyap’s super- hero film Doga . He has also bulked up for the role, as can be seen by his frame — although he insists he’s wearing a superhero suit.
Doga is a rather dark superhero film.
“ It’s not like Superman or Spiderman , but if you were to draw a parallel, he inhabits the world of Batman ,” explains Kapoor. “ It is quite exciting to see a superhero with human frailties.” Playing the superhero has triggered in Kapoor an interest in flying — in an aircraft, of course.
Kapoor insists he even has the aptitude for it. “ The trainer said I was naturally predisposed towards it because Punjabis have a great talent with machines; just the way Banias are good with money and Gujaratis are good at business,” he says. Kapoor takes the theory further by saying his young cousins would take radios and transistors apart — even when Koel argues it is probably indicative of their destructive tendencies.
He may be flying in real life, but his career hasn’t exactly followed the aerial route after Rang De Basanti , which should have been the perfect launchpad for any career. But Kapoor says though he’s a newcomer, he has been choosy about the films he takes up, “ even if there is pressure to do another sort of movies”. So he’s doing Doga with Kashyap and another film based in Punjab with Manorama Six
Feet Under director Navdeep Singh. And that is the reason he was doing a lot of smaller roles with the Yash Raj banner; garnering appreciation from all quarters for all his roles — yes, all five of them. “ I believe everyone has his own pace,” he says. It’s a hard stance to take in the dog- eat- dog world of Bollywood.
Kapoor speaks of how it’s possible for him to take that stance because he comes from a fairly comfortable background, so he does not really have to work for a living. “ Besides, I am not an insecure person,” he says.
Kapoor grew up in Juhu, but doesn’t come from a film family — he went through the grind before he took up films. “ The worst was working with a textile company in Saki Naka, where I had to mix the colours to get the best shade,” he recalls. “ One day, I was talking to someone who had been doing the job for 35 years and I suddenly had a vision of myself 35 years later. That’s when I decided to take up something else.” The best trial profession, though, was being a stock- broker.
Kapoor attributes his close involvement with the filmmaking process to his days as assistant director with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. “ Right now, I’m in a place where I just want to act,” he says.
As for the ladies, Kapoor says he is not seeing Raima Sen. And Aamir is his favourite co- star.
“ I’d heard he was selfish when
it came to a film, but when you see Rang De Basanti , you realise that it is a true ensemble film,” he says. But that’s in the past.
Right now, he is busy with Lamha , with Sanjay Dutt, in Kashmir — the film Bipasha Basu had abandoned for fear of shooting in the Valley. “ It is a little difficult shooting with the army around,” Kapoor admits. “ But I wanted to do the film because portrayals of Kashmir tend to get jingoistic.
So, I was concerned about doing a responsible film,” he adds.
As Koel puts it on her blog in www. intoday. in : “ How do you manage being good- looking, intelligent and modest all at the same time … it’s a difficult balance, how do you achieve it? This is the question Kunal Kapoor would have liked me to ask him. I would have, adding, ‘ Why hasn’t someone with all of the above credentials found a firmer foothold in the industry?’ The answer to that is simple. He’s not a man in a hurry and he’s not going to run just because everyone else is running.”
—Agencies