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RANT: “Actor” vs. “Character” in Hindi films
Disclaimer: This rant is restricted to mainstream films and in particular their stars. I am aware of brilliant actors the calibre of Irfan Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Arshad Warsi, Ranvir Shoery who’ve proven their abilities in both lead and supporting roles. But I’m in the mood to rant and rant about “popular” cinema, so here I go…
I find that I’m rarely drawn into a hindi film, or its protagonist, through an actors interpretation and presentation of the character. Most of the performances are just that, performances, not portrayals. All too often the actor outshines the character, as opposed to the character shining through.
I’m not placing the blame entirely on the actors here. Weak characterizations, sub-par direction, and other factors obviously contribute to the overall impact a performance, or character, makes. In any event, there are certain big stars which one can’t help but analyze and realize that their star power can be all too overpowering.
I’ll be the first to admit to being a Shahrukh fan. However, because of his trademark mannerisms and style, he tends to take over his characters with his own personality. Whether its “Main Hoon Naa”, “Don”, “Kal Ho Na Ho” or others, we see more Shahrukh than Ram Prasad or Don or whatever the case may be. I was once asked what would happen if Shahrukh were to act in a RGV film. I answered “the same thing as when he worked with Mani Ratnam in Dil Se”. Amarkant Verma’s daring journalism was no match for Shahrukh’s restless energy and adbundant charisma. Its nice then to see a more down-to-earth side of him in “Swades”, and though he still may not have brought “Mohan Bhargav” completely to life, at least it was more character than the actor we’re so used to seeing. “Chak De India” shows promise on that front. Lets wait and see…
Salman Khan, as charismatic and charming as he can be onscreen, can rarely be differentiated from film to film. Whether its “Mujhse Shaadi Karogi” or “Jaaneman” or even “Tere Naam” (all different directors), you can’t help but realize its Salman your watching.
As huge a fan I am of Sanjay Dutt, and as much as I enjoy the Munnabhai series, I still have a tough time seperating the character of Munnabhai from the persona of Sanjay Dutt. Same goes with films like “Musafir” or “Kaante” or even films like “Viruddh”, “Deewar”, “Dus” and others. Some say its because Sanjay Dutt has such a dominant presence its tough to see past him to his characters. Not sure, but I for one would love to see Sanjay Dutt completely immersed in a portrayal to the point that what you see is a different person altogther. I haven’t seen “SOAL” but I’ve heard he’s more “AA Khan” than Sanjay Dutt. If that’s the case then I look forward to it.
Akshay Kumar has undoubtebly evolved into a fine performer. Be it “Namaste London”, “Jaaneman”, “Aitraaz” or “Khakee”, the man has proven to be a dependable actor with an enviable box office record. No matter how you rank ‘em, he’s earned a permanent spot Top 5 Bollywood Superstars, be it with audiences and filmmakers. He can bring in the audiences and give them their moneys worth. But when was the last time you were so impressed with an Akshay Kumar performance to the point where you forgot you were watching Akshay Kumar?
This is not to say the performances or even characters are similar in each film. Its just that no matter what type of character they’re playing, the personality and presence of the actor/star is more prevalent than the character.
There are a few cases of the character coming through and creating a bigger impact despite the star.
Of course Aamir Khan comes to mind here. He somehow manages to get so deep into the skin of his characters (and I dont just mean “the look”) that you feel your watching the story of “Munna” / “Raghu Jaitly” / “Sid” / “Sidhu” / “DJ” / “Bhuvan” more so than watching Aamir Khan.
But then how many actors have a resume where one can see that level of consistency?
Ajay Devgan’s done it for me with “Company”, and “Apharan”, and to an extent in “Bhooth” and “Yuva”, but then often times in films like “Khakee” or “Zameen” or “Masti” or “Golmal” its more Ajay Devgan.
Anil Kapoor plays his characters exceedingly well. The man has an amazing ability to captivate and hold audiences. Mind you even he’s not entirely consistent. For every “My Wife’s Murder” there’s a “No Entry”, for even “Chocolate” there’s a “Bewafaa” or “Humko Deewana Kar Gaye”. Again, I realize that the writing/direction play a big part here, but hey it is what it is.
Saif Ali Khan has successfully transformed himself into his characters a few times as well. Brilliant work in “Ek Hasina Thi” and of course “Omkara” where one was completely taken into the films “world” through his character. I’m still debating this “character” vs. “actor” equation in “Dil Chahta Hai”, “Parineeta” and “Eklavya”, though all three were no doubt commendable performances.
I’m a Akshaye Khanna fan. For me, in Border, his “Dharamveer” was a real person who had a real issue dealing war. I found that the film may have rushed his “boy to man” character arc, but the effectiveness of his portrayal brought in the required believability. The same sincerity to the character could be seen in films such as “Aa Ab Laut Chalen”, “Taal”, “Dil Chahta Hai”, “Humraaz”, “Deewangee”, and even “Salaam-E-Ishq”. There was a certain distinctiveness in each of his portrayals. His own persona and mannerisms were adapted very well to fit into the mould of each individual character. Yes, he’s had his share of lackluster films (who hasn’t?). But then here was an actor who, arguably, had showed the kind of consistently different characters the current generation had only seen in Aamir Khan, who for the most part was on a hiatus, leaving behind a void which desperately needed to be filled. I understand its an unfair comparison, but then who else of his generation has shown that level of versatility and dedication? I’m waiting to be blown away with “Gandhi - My Father”, which by all accounts looks to be absolutely brilliant.
Then there are the one-offs, notably amongst them Vivek Oberoi’s “Chandu” from “Company”. Watching Company vs. most Vivek films that followed, you can’t help but marvel at the potential. He’s got the intensity and the ability. But then somehow the depth of his characterizations are just not visible even in great performances such as “Saathiya” and “Yuva” and “Omkara”. Again, I’ve heard that he “becomes Maya” in SOAL. I haven’t seen it, so I wouldn’t know… yet.
And then there’s Hritik Roshan, who completely shocked audiences by submitting himself to a difficult character in “Koi Mil Gaya” and making the unbelievable seem believable. Whether you love the film or hate it, you cannot deny the hard work and dedication he had to put in to make the man-child Rohit so life-like.
But since then the star in Hritik has taken over. In “Dhoom 2″ and “Krrish” its hard to deny Hritik’s immense contributions. He completely takes over those films and mesmerizes audiences with his performances. Fine, films may not exactly be great cinema, but audiences went crazy over them… all thanks to Hritik Roshans star power.
This is obviously just my take, as frivilous as it may be (c’mon, its Friday afterall!). I know you all must have your opinions, and I’d love to hear them :D
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I guess you missed Kamal Hassan, I can list many movies where he seems the character more than the star. But most notable are “Nayagan” “Mahanadhi”
“Swathimuttam” “Pushpak Viman” “sadma” ……..
Agree with you about Akshaye Khanna, and that may be the reason he is not an A-list Actor in Bollywood, whatever that means.
A few roles where I felt the actors (Bollywood only) got completely into character:
SRK in Kabhi Haa Kabhi Naa
Manoj Bajpai in Satya & Shool
Sushant in Jungle
Akshaye in DCH
Sushmita in Samay
Konkona everytime!
Vivek in Company
Randeep in the Darna Zaroori Hai segment
Salman in parts of Baaghi (he wasnt a star yet)
Arshad as Circuit, and in Seher
SR - I know my post is very limited in that I only hindi cinema… well, even then only mainstream “popular” hindi cinema and only certain big stars… well, only the “heros” (not heroines/actresses or “character”/”supporting” actors)…
Kamal Hassan is a fantastic actor, although I’d have to think most of his best work as an actor is in South Indian films. Not to say his performances in “Hey Ram” or “Chachi 420″ or others were anything short of brilliant…
A friend of mine read this, called me up at work to bitch at me sayin “WHAT? No BACHCHANS?? How can you talk about popular hindi cinema stars and not mention even ONE BACHCHAN?! … umm… yeah I guess I… you know… just… didn’t…
I know there are lots of other guys like John Abraham, Abhishek Bachan, Shahid Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai, Arshad Warsi, Shiney Ahuja, Emraan Hashmi, Jackie Shroff…
I guess that’s what this threads for.. to cover the stars I’ve left out and debate the ones I’ve included…
Still waiting for Mainak to refute my Akshaye Khanna comments…
;)
Hrithik in LAKSHYA was amazing…
What ? No Sunny Deol ?
arre nana patekar kahan hai?????????
Anand - I dunno. Hrithik was great in Lakshya, but something about his character (in the first half) just didnt connect… it was a bit TOO lazy/bholu… not sure if it was Hritiks performance or the characerization, maybe a bit of both, but I found it to be overdone… ab koi itna bholu bhi nahin hota yaar… yeh to ek number ka gonchoo dikhaya gaya tha usko… in the 2nd half he was really good…
I thought Hrithik was more life-like in Fiza and Mission Kashmir… he had more distinct characters in those films…
Mind you, if given the right character, here’s a guy you could do wonders with… I think Hrithik’s got the highest level of potential of anyone in the industry today…
Justin John, Kaafir - Sorry yaaron, sab ka naam leta to blog nahin book likhni padti…
JJ-bhai… I can’t think of very many films where Sunny seemed more like a different character than he did Sunny Deol… Again, this is not to say he didn’t perform very well… right from Betaab, Arjun to Ghayal, Ghatak, Darr to Gadar, Jaal… he’s had lots of great performances… I’m looking forward to Apne… but I can’t say that in any of these films he wasn’t more Sunny Deol than the character he was playing…
Nana Patekar on the other hand DEFINATELY gets on that list… I mean, as recently as Hat Trick the Dr. character totally came out. Same with the taxi driver of 9211… Raghu Shastri, now there’s a character… Nana changes his mannerisms for different characters.. imparts certain nuances to his characters… makes them memorable…
Speaking of Taxi 9211, must say John Abraham was very impressive in that film… he played his spoilt/confused yet decent rich kid character to a T… again, here’s an example where you remember the character beyond the actor… Some may argue but I found John played Kabir (Dhoom) very well… you remember Kabir for Kabir, not just for John Abraham…
Most may disagree with me, but I really think Aamir is overrated. Brilliant, yes- but still way overrated. I mean, all the hype about his perfectionist streak and stuff, it’s just too much. I mean, no way was he Mangal Pandey in the dreadful film by the same name. And at the risk of sounding simplistic, let me say something. Look, a Shah Rukh Khan or Ajay Devgan is easily slotted (hammy, romantic and brooding, intense- respectively) but come to think of it, is there really THAT much of variety in the characters Aamir plays? DCH- cocky, smart city slicker, Mangal Pandey- cocky, smart freedom fighter, fanaa- cocky, smart tourist guide, RDB- cocky, smart munda- DCH’s Aakash turned punju…does a change in look and profession make so much of a difference? Rangeela and
I thought Shah Rukh was outstanding in Swades- totally in the skin of Mohan Bhargav- can’t think of anyone who could have done better.
Hrithik for me, yet has to prove himself with a solid performance. KMG was a first for Bollywood, so everyone went gaga, but compare it to international performances and what you see is an immature hammy performance- playing a retard like a retard, if you know what I mean. There’s hope with Jodha Akbar though…and he did show potential in Lakshya. Needs to cut down on the overearnest factor and restrain himself.
As of now- Saif is THE man- Parineeta, Omkara, Being Cyrus, bloody hell, what range! And he even manages to infuse credibility in the most mundane stuff- take TRRP for instance.
Losing oneself in a character is what Johnny Depp does- I mean he doesn’t look or feel like Johnny Depp no more.
if there was one role with even a semblence of giving into the character for sanjay dutt it was vaastav. i was surprised that sunju da could act!!
Excellent analysis.
Two reasons why I feel the actor-character differentiation becomes difficult.
1) Indian audiences idolise their stars so much that they demand to see him in every film of his. For e.g. yesteryears stars like Raaj Kumar used to say his dialogues in the same “Jaani” drawl in every film. Or Rajesh Khanna’s crinkling smile was the same for every character.
2) In the recent times, due to audio-visual media becoming so dominant, we see interviews of the actors on TV. This brings us closer to the real persona of the stars. And when we then see their performances, you start seeing shades and traces of their real self in the performances and the distinction gets blurred. In the good old days, (i.e. in my childhood in the 70s), I used to wait for the only TV interview - Tabassum’s Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan for my favorite stars to appear - in vain. I never heard interviews of the biggies Amitabh, Hema etc. and hence never knew how they spoke in real life. Hence, the character =actor=character.
PLS MAN.I personally think dt kabhi haan was sharakuhs best performance till date.i used 2 like his mannarisms,but he became so much tookover wid his stupid stammering and hammering film after film dt it started 2 freak me out.he actually is captured by his trademark style and is not able 2 come out of it(or dosent want2?)he is happy catering 2 dumb teenage grls.
hey i heard he was offered munnabhai ,my goodness he wud have turned manna bhai in2 MANNIBAI.=))
@DPac. You said that u were surprised to see that Sanjay Dutt could act in Vaastav. In which film did u find Sanjay Dutt’s acting bad ? I am a Sanjay Dutt fan. Maybe thats why felt a bit hurt. I reccomend that u watch Sanjay Dutt’s old films. For comedy watch Thanedar. If u don’t want to watch the full film then just watch the song “Jabse Hue hai Shaadi”. For his other underworld movies watch Khatarnaak, Hatyaar(J.P Dutta’s one), Yodha, Kroadh, Yalgaar, etc.
According to me Sanjay Dutt is one of the best actors in the world. He has not acted badly in any film. Even in Ekalavya, he was the best even in that small role.
@justin
not that he cant act mate… but this particular post deals with actors who gets into the skin of the character. sanjay dutt playing sanjay dutt in numerous roles and characters doesnt make him a great actor.. it makes him a star to say the least.
apart from vaastav the closest he got to the skin was in naaam…
then again in NAAM he was pretty much doing himself as far as i heard
Tony, don’t you sometimes feel that Nana’s also fallen into catering to his stereotype too much - the rants, the one-liners etc? I think he’s a great actor, but off late he’s been doing nothing that really challenges him (except AT66, of course) - I found his performances in Shakt, Taxi, Bhoot etc very repetitive. One of my fav’ Nana performances was Prahaar, I thought he was fab’ in it.
Kay Kay Menon, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak & Konkona Sen r I think the best actors around 2day. Kay Kay, it’s amazing how he manages to pull off every character so damn convncngly he literally shatters his image, built so solidly with his previous act, to set up an equally, if not a stronger, image with his latest act: eg. Rakesh Maria followed by Partho Sen then Ranjeet all 3 of them worlds apart. Vinay Pathak & Konkona don’t seem to act, they r so natural. Irrfan is a brilliant actor, but he has been typecast,in a way with his trademark eccentricity, slightly swaying body language & his dialog delvry. And none of these actors can b slotted as either mainstream or arthouse: they r equally gd in both & they can stand their ground in both. Oh, & Ranvir, the way he portrays his 1-dimensional character in HPTL & the impressn he leaves with abt 10 mins. of screen time show how gd he is!
Ranjit - I thought Nana was playing to his tereotype around the time he was doing Ghulam-E-Mustafa, Yeshwant, and other such films. He was repeating his Krantiveer/Tiranga (not sure which came first). Prahaar was really good…
I do like what he’s doing now… like I had said, Hat-Trick and Taxi 9211 I thought he played both characters differently.
I also really enjoyed his comedy in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman.. to this day it remains different for anything he’s done… would love to see him to comedy again…
Ranjit, thanks for reminding me of Ab Tak Chhappan, thought that was another fantastic Nana Patekar performance…
Jahan Bakshi - I hate to say it but I can see your points concerning Aamir Khan.. This ones tough.. but at least with Aamir (as opposed to most Hindi film stars) he lends some distinctiveness to each character.. at least you remember Sid from DCH and DJ from RDB, Sidhu from Ghulam and Munna from Rangeela..
Agree with you on Shahrukh in Swades…
And definately agree with you on Saif Ali Khan.. amazing range and fantastic dedication to his characters…
Thanks Ravindra… You’ve hit the bullseye with both your points… throughout the decades mainstream Hindi film stars have been giving the audience what they want, each star having his own trademarks in terms of performance style, dialogue delivery, etc.
Even Amitabh played his “angry young man” character quite similarly (with slight variations) in Zanjeer, Sholay, Deewar, Trishul, Kaala Pathar, Muquaddar Ka Sikandar, Shakti, etc… Don’t get me wrong, his performances were mindblowing in each film… but it seemed as if his characters were written with his Amitanh persona in mind…
Thankfully Amitabh also gave amazing comic performances in Amar Akbar Anthony, Chupke Chupke, Namak Haraam and others. Here Amitabh really fit into the mould of his characters and made each one distinct.
Even the Amitabh of today has a certain persona which overpowers his characters, case in point: K3G, Baghban, Kyun Ho Gaya Na, Black, Waqt, Virrudh, Dil Jo Bhi Kahey, Baabul, etc.
Thankfully, in the last few years Amitabhs also done films like Kaante, Dev, Veer Zaara, Bunty Aur Babli, Paheli, Sarkar, Eklavya, Cheeni Kum, etc where he was able to play a different character in each film.
Again, going back to Ravindra’s points its not as if Amitabh and many other stars aren’t damn well capable of playing different characters. But when the audiences want to see their stars then thats the image filmmakers project.
@Tony: I liked his comedic side in the ‘Rainman’-inspired Hum Dono too. The ‘Ghulam-e-Mustafa’ phase was easily his worst, yeah (with, perhaps, the exception of ‘Yugpurush’). I haven’t seen ‘Hattrick’, but I thought he was just being his usual acidic self in ‘Taxi..’. Yet another Nana performance I love is in Bhansali’s ‘Khamoshi’..sadly Bhansali went downhill after that.
AB..I think after his return he’s forgotten the meaning of subtlety. Except for ‘Sarkar’, ‘Nishabd’ and bits of ‘Black’ & ‘Khaki’, he’s given consistently loud performances, IMHO. The Amitabh who could convey so much wryness, angst or anger with a mere glance (Deewar, Zangeer, Sholay, Mili, Satte Pe Satta, Main Aazad Hoon) is, I fear, lost forever.
@Ranjit
“Hum Dono” was not inspired from Rainman. It was inspired from “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”.
@Justin: WAs it - maybe a mix of the two. I mean, a brother coming to collect his newly discovered illegitimate sibling to claim dad’s wealth - wasn’t that all Rainman?
Yah… it maybe a mix. In Hum Dono both Nana Patekar and Rishi Kapoor are siblings. But they are unaware of it and they travel together in planes, trains and other automobiles as both are going in the same direction. Nana Patekar does not like Rishi Kapoor because of his jokes and the way he talks. All this is in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Rainman is also a road trip movie. Both are brothers. Tom Cruise kidnaps Dustin Hoffman who is like a special person(know what I mean ?). Dustin does not want to travel by train and then they travel by road and Tom Cruise starts liking Dustin.
So Hum Dono maybe a mix of both these films. I don’t remember Rainman much. I remember only a few scenes.
Ranjit, J John
Rainman was more about Dustin Hoffman suffering from Autism, though there was bit road trip but always major points were Dustin’s peculiar habits like when he says he has to see certain TV show and Tom Cruise finds he has only few minutes to arrange a TV for him. Dustin just stops in the middle of the road because he reads sign of Stop on other side of road and traffic stops because of him.
A single actor Dustin Hoffman made the film a memmorable film. :)