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Bhaag Milkha Bhaag puts the icing on a new cake in Indian cinema — directors turning into brilliant actors with out-of-the-box performances coming out as if from a magician’s hat. Farhan Akhtar, who made headlines and drew both critical and commercial success with his directorial debut, Dil Chahta Hai (2001) plays the title role of Olympic runner Milkha Singh in the film. He has done this before and slowly, his acting career is on a higher rung on the ladder of success than his directorial career. He has already acted in films like Luck By Chance, directed by sister Zoya Akthar, and Rock On, both of which were very good films. Last year, he played one of the three friends in another male-buddy film, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara also directed by Zoya, which was one of the biggest hits of the year. He also portrayed the very difficult role of a schizophrenic in Kartik Calling Kartik (2010) directed by Vijay Lalwani. "When I am acting under someone else’s directorial baton, I put myself in his control and keep the director in me out. This helps me perform the tightrope walk between acting and directing. Cinema runs in the family and I have it in my genes," says Farhan. Anurag Kashyap did a brief cameo in Luck By Chance and will be remembered for his natural way of expressing himself. The story of directors suddenly deciding to apply greasepaint to face the camera goes back to Chetan Anand who acted as the Buddhist ascetic Anand in Anjali, which he also directed. But his acting was disastrous and he never tried it again. His youngest brother Vijay Anand, who directed some of the biggest hits like Teesri Manzil (1966) and Guide (1965), donned make-up for films like Haqueeqat (1964) directed by his eldest brother Chetan Anand, Kora Kagaz (1964) opposite Jaya Bachchan, and the super-hit family melodrama Main Tulsi Teri Angan Ki (1978) opposite Nutan. But his acting could not hold a candle to his directorial command. Once upon a time, many young men who stepped into the industry to become actors could not strike a note and turned over to other areas of filmmaking such as production and direction. The most successful among them is none other than Subhash Ghai, who graduated from the FTII. But in the recent years, many successful directors are jumping onto the acting bandwagon, and doing so with reasonable success. One of them is Mahesh Manjrekar, who gave Sanjay Dutt a new lease of life with films like Vaastav (1999) and Kurukshetra (2000) and also directed the path-breaking feminist film Astitva (2000), surprised everyone with his acting debut in Kaante (2002), directed by Sanjay Gupta. He earlier acted in a song sequence in Vaastav but acting is nothing new for him because he began his career as a stage and television actor. In world cinema, the best example is Orson Welles, who acted in the main role in many of his directorial films and did this with great artistry though he did not have the screen presence of a hero as he was not conventionally good-looking. Charlie Chaplin is his more famous counterpart, who created his personal style of satire and humour, laced with pathos, during the silent era though he too, was neither tall nor handsome, and did not have the screen presence of the conventional hero. Being equipped with both directorial and acting skills can sometimes become a liability as the director can feel the pressure of handling every department of film production and also direct himself. In course of time, a director might excel in one at the cost of losing out on the other. In Hollywood, many directors continued to act and direct with equal excellence. One example is Sidney Pollack. Doing small cameos in one’s own directorial films is a common element across the world. But it needs both courage and confidence to tackle both and some directors carried both responsibilities on their able shoulders. Rituparno Ghosh, who passed away recently, is the most outstanding example of a director taking on the mantle of acting in films directed by others and one film that he directed himself. He acted in Just Another Love Story directed by Koushik Ganguly, in Memories in March directed by Sanjay Nag and in Chitrangada — The Crowning Wish which he directed himself. In all three films, he played a gay character struggling with his sexual choices and his identity crisis all alone.
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