Keeping with the YashRaj ‘tradition’ to keep things under wrapped till the release date, one only got a mere whiff that they were making a film with Anushka and Ranveer, assumptions went awry and many considered Ranveer a typo for Ranbir Kapoor. Graduating from those assumptions, Ranveer made quite a grand entry on the small screen with the promos but with it came rumours about how his dad would have funded the film, why else would YASHRAJ give a newcomer a solo hero project. From what we remember, Uday Chopra didn’t get a solo hero debut! The publicists worked hard at clearing these bizarre rumours about Ranveer’s moneybag daddy and a Yash Raj film being funded by an outsider... but all the bickering and rumours felt silent with the loud applauds the boy received when BAND BAAJA BARAAT hit the theatres. And suddenly from behind all the confusions emerged the next big thing - Ranveer Singh.
Does he credit his hard work or his luck, I asked, “I think I am the first one to be introduced by YashRaj in a solo hero project. When I got the call from them I was not certain, because I knew they worked with established stars only so this launch was beyond my imagination, that too the right script and at the right time. And most importantly, I was ready to do some good work. I had paid my dues during the struggle period and I was at the right age.” Given he has bagged some awards already for his debut film, the struggle period might not seem as bad today but sure there would be days when he felt like giving it all up and maybe changing over to a lesser gamble?
“Many have told me ‘arrey tune kya struggle kiya hai, you stayed with your dad and traveled around in cars...’ I really don’t appreciate that talk at all, struggle is a very relative term. Few know that while I was struggling to get a break in films, my family was going through probably the worst phase financially. They had spent a lot of money on my foreign education and I had still not started earning. It would have really helped had I been bringing some kind of income home but instead I was aiming at something that was far away from my reach. Yes, I was sitting at my father’s house but I was not at peace. It was mentally the most taxing period so what if I was not eating toothpaste sandwiches! You said it right when you called it a gamble.”
And the gamble called acting comes with a lot of people pulling you down, if not downright ridiculing you....
“Friends who knew me from childhood always told me that I am not cut out for a 9-to-5 job. I was the nautankI of the school. I did just what I liked...” that explains why literature was his favourite and mathematics was just a chore but it was annual day that brought the limelight upon him, “yes, annual day was my day. I took part in all the activities. I always wanted to entertain... you know during the struggle phase I was assisting Shaad AlI for a while. My first job with him was an AD on an ad shoot. We were shooting Paresh Rawaj at Bhaidas Hall. All my friends kept teasing me saying, ‘dekhle once you get behind the camera you might never get in front of one ever again.’ I shut them up but it kept playing at the back of my mind, what if I get scared seeing what really goes around in acting, maybe I will enjoy more behind the camera.... Anyways, I reached Bhaidas and they were putting up the sets and doing the lighting, where PareshjI was to stand that place was lit up and the second I saw that spot, I knew it, that is where I want to be. That is where I belonged.” his eyes still sparkle, perhaps with gratitude cause today he is where he wanted to be.... but I wanted to know about days when this dream was no where close to getting realised... when acting was perhaps restricted to the mirror in the bathroom. What were his favourite scenes, the ones he enacted for just himself....
“‘You talking to me? You talking to me? There is no one else here so you must be talking to me...’ Robert de Niro in TaxI Driver.... “ he enacted the famous dialogue and moved onto his other favourite, “Al Pachino in Scarface, these performances made me wanna act!”
Spoke like a true Bandra boy, what about our Hindi film folk?
“I love them all from Amitabh Bachchan to Aamir Khan to Shah Rukh to Salman to Govinda... I love them all. Shah Rukh especially. I might be an exceptional bandra boy but I totally loved them all. Being in bandra you are in the heart of it all. I was damn filmi as a kid. I was fairly enamored by it all, I wasn’t crazy to hang around their houses for a glimpse but then being in Bandra I was used to seeing them in recreational clubs, Salman Khan’s sister was in my school and stuff…”
Given he has grown up seeing the who is who of the industry, getting the star-act together wouldn’t be a problem for Ranveer, but question remains how did he train to get his acting in place? After all the ‘1-2-3 change’ kind of dancing and all needs practice.
Laughing he said, “You can either do it or can’t! I tried training in acting but I realized that the acting training available here is not very good. If you are good natural actors, the training might ruin you. It took me a year to unlearn what they were trying to teach me. The thing is the kind of acting they are teaching died in 1980…it doesn’t work anymore. Also I realized, that acting can’t be taught… All a good acting training can give you is suggestion; you have to achieve this and you can approach it either this way or that way… Every actor has his original way of approaching. I didn’t want to get influenced and restricted by someone else’s idea of acting. Acting is mercurial, it’s fluid… if you get set in a form you are closing your horizons.” His fundas seemed well thought and given he has been appreciated in his first film, there certainly is an obvious show of confidence in his theories. But sometimes theories don’t work, practice doesn’t work…. nothing does, one of those bad days or has he seen them yet?
He agreed there are days when nothing really seems to work and for a novice it sure gets unnerving, “There was this monologue I had to do, if you see it you would not know why was it difficult, but there was this particular pitch which was the emotional quotient in that monologue, it could not be altered else it would become clichéd… the emotional quotient had to be pitch perfect. Manish knew that pitch and for me to catch that was becoming very difficult. Somehow it wasn’t coming through in the required way and it kept Once I got it wrong, I would not say wrong there is nothing wrong or right but, in a way which wasn’t fitting and somehow it kept spirally more and more into the wrong direction. I just had to let go and start again and again till Manish said ‘theek hai 75% aagaya hai, baki 25% when you are on the set and we have created the environment it will come. So we went on the set…we okayed the shot, we took anushka’s angle and then in the end he said chal we will take one more take and if you hit it here then great else we will can the shot as is. It felt like a world cup penalty shot for me…” and he scored!
It sure is a happy feeling to accomplish what you have set out to do, but it is the sustenance that is always the tougher to attain. Idea is to be irreplaceable, indispensible. Or at least give that impression!
“Of course, but that will come with a strong body of work, when you have a certain section of audience that loves to subscribe to your work. It takes many, many, many films to get there. Acting is a lot of hard work, and I am prepared to do that. I am pretty confident that if I am given a certain number of years and God is as kind has he has been so far I will be an indispensable part of the industry.” I liked his dreams and if not his work, I surely was beginning to subscribe to a few of his ideas but the fact is to get around in this industry one has to be good at selling themselves, and once you have had a YashRaj experience starting afresh some consider below their dignity.
“Fortunately , I am being approached but I completely fine with the idea of singing for supper and I will do it till the day I die. Some people feel that once they are established they don’t want to go audition or do a test, ‘main dvd bhej dunga’ sorts, I don’t think that is cool at all. As an entertainer at any given stage in your life you should by all means have to sing for your supper, why should anyone take you on face value, you have to prove that you are worthy of the role. Cause at the end of it, you are dispensable.” He matter-of-factly stated the scariest fact of the industry but for him, there is still a long way before such fears even come to the horizons… today he is basking merrily and even remembering to call Nimmi Aunty, the lady who first took his autograph… but life for Ranveer is at the threshold of change, here’s wishing him a good head and able shoulders
