Unstoppable Nawazuddin
Saibal Chatterjee

Kick is his first foray into a big-budget potboiler but here too Nawazuddin Siddiqui leaves an indelible mark with a lively and spot-on interpretation of the character of a crooked businessman

The latest Salman Khan-starrer, Kick, has catapulted Nawazuddin Siddiqui, poster boy of a completely different kind of Hindi cinema, into the 200-crore club. But knowing the 39-year-old actor, it is unlikely that he is over the moon.

An actor who is rooted to the ground, Siddiqui seeks his kicks from injecting realism into every on-screen role that he plays. Kick is his first foray into a big-budget potboiler but he seems completely at home amid its over-the-top excesses.

Siddiqui rises above a terribly patchy screenplay to leave an indelible mark with a lively and spot-on interpretation of the character of a crooked businessman. As long as he is on the screen, Kick is alive with possibilities.

"The pitching of Kick is markedly different from all the films that I have hitherto done, so I’ve naturally had to make some adjustments," admits Siddiqui. "But as a professional, it is my job to make every character that I play believable."

And that is precisely what he manages to do with a larger-than-life villain, who is fancily called Shiv Gajra. Neither the outlandish nature of the role nor the freakish acts that the character unleashes can stop Siddiqui from fleshing out an intriguing epitome of evil that is as vivid as it is vibrant.

Adds Siddiqui, "I had a ball doing Kick. It was both challenging and exciting to be part of a big-banner mainstream film in which the director allowed me enough room to delve into and mould the defining traits of the character in my own way."

So can fans of the actor hope to see him in more such films in the future?

Siddiqui’s career is definitely taking a new turn. He reveals that it is "a conscious decision on his part to plunge into all kinds of roles in order to explore unknown genres".

A few months down the line, Siddiqui will be, for the first time, demonstrating his comic skills in Ghoomketus, about a Lucknow writer who travels to Mumbai to try his luck in the movie industry. The film has been produced by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap, who also plays a character in the film.

Says the actor: "Ghoomketu is not your average farcical comedy but is filled with low-key humour. It is about a small-town man. People from the smaller towns of India possess far more wit than their big city counterparts."

Also on Siddiqui’s anvil is a "dark thriller’ in which he plays the lead alongside Varun Dhawan and is cast opposite his Gangs of Wasseypur co-star Huma Qureshi. The film, Badlapur, is directed by Sriram Raghavan and produced by Saif Ali Khan’s Illuminati Films.

What is apparent from his choice of films and roles is that Siddiqui has left his days as a character actor well behind him and is now focusing fully on lead roles. He is finally getting his due but he had to face his share of struggle on the way here.

For the Uttar Pradesh farmer’s son who has come up in life the hard way, the trappings of stardom are a false burden he can do without. His string of successes notwithstanding, he remains a completely unassuming actor interested only in being the best that he can be in his chosen craft.

The amazingly versatile Siddiqui is nothing short of phenomenal — he turns seemingly nondescript screen characters into unforgettable signposts.

In Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani, he was a cocky, no-nonsense Information Bureau officer; in Reema Kagti’s Talaash he inhabited the world of a grey character; in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur, he was in full flow; and in Dibakar Banerjee’s segment of Bombay Talkies, he was at his dazzling best.

In the late 1990s, when he arrived in Mumbai armed with a diploma from the National School of Drama, he had to make do with bit roles in big films such as Sarfarosh and Munnabhai MBBS.

Today, he is a feted actor who has been consistently adding his weight to internationally acclaimed Hindi films such as Miss Lovely and The Lunchbox.

Siddiqui attributes his rising stocks to the changes that are sweeping through the Mumbai movie industry. The Indian audience has become more demanding and discerning and a more subtle kind of cinema is gaining takers around the country, he says.

"People want to watch good actors on the screen as much as they want to watch the superstars," he says. "Unfortunately, the smaller films do not reach every corner of the country. And even if they do, the promotion is extremely limited," he adds.

He cites the example of the recently released Ankhon Dekhi, which, he says, deserved a much wider release and aggressive promotion. "It could have done wonders at the boxoffice," he adds.

It is the small films, Siddiqui argues, that need greater support. He asks: "Why do the films of the superstars need so much promotion if they really have clout?"

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