Sunday, May 6, 2001		Article

DO screen villains make good friends in real life?

If the experiences of Prem Chopra and Gulshan Grover are anything to go by, their larger-than-life image has made them social outcasts in India. Their best friends, they say, all live abroad and in all likelihood have not seen their films yet.

This was revealed by the actors in a symposium, The Indian Villain Through The Ages organised by the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bombay. "I am surprised why mothers are not yanking their children away from us," remarked Chopra amidst laughter.

Deliberating on the highs and heartbreaks of playing the baddie, Grover pointed out he is no longer one guy on the rampage. "Nowadays, films have several villains — the papa villain, son villain, the uncle villain, the crony villain, sometimes there is a family of villains, all wearing black suits!"

Chopra observed that villains also try to make audiences laugh and added that no reasons are given by the director as to why a villain becomes the way he is. "Today if you put that crucial ‘why’ into the villain’s role, 20 heroes are willing to play it," retorted Grover.

While Chopra, who started his career as a lead actor or "hero", said that he got into the wolves’ skin by a twist of fate, Grover emphasised that he always wanted to play the bad boy on screen. Both, however, pleaded ignorance as to why people should be scared of them off-screen.

Chopra narrated his experience on a train several years ago, when a man ordered the women in his family to keep a "safe distance from the bad man" in the compartment. Grover talked about an air hostess who refused to sit beside him on an aeroplane!

— MF