When I Met Danny Denzongpa!
Before I made the move to Mumbai a year and a half ago, I thought that I’d probably get my first break as an actor playing Danny Denzongpa’s son in some movie. I met the man himself last Saturday and had a wonderful chat with him. I’m still not over it.
Shivajee Chandrabhushan, director of the much-awarded (and finally to-be-released on May 8th) Frozen, told fellow PFCite Manjeet and I that Danny saab had agreed to do a meet-the-press for the release of the movie. To refresh my memory and also do a bit of homework, I brought the DVDs of Agneepath, Ghatak, Seven Years in Tibet and Mere Apne. I’d watched Hum last year, and it’s still fresh in my mind. Frozen I’d seen a couple of months ago, and I think I still remember practically every shot. I also printed out a list of Danny saab’s movies from IMDB – 172 in all. And his first movie, Mere Apne, was in 1971, ten years before I was even born!
The more you look up to someone you’re about to meet, the more you worry about not saying anything stupid. When the man himself entered, wearing a black T-shirt and trousers, the first thing that struck me was how very fit he was. Shivajee has said it’s because of an hour of treadmill and table tennis everyday, plus eating carefully.
Danny saab has the reputation of being a very private person, so I was kind of shocked when he stepped forward and said hi first, with that perfect smile of his. Shivajee introduced me, and I told Danny saab straight away, “Hi sir. I came to Mumbai thinking I’d get a break playing the role of your son in some movie.” He was gracious enough to have a laugh and not have the J W Mariott staff chuck me out on my ass.
Danny sir then went on to do several interviews while Manjeet and I had some splendid conversations with Raj Zutshi, Yashpal Sharma and Sanjay Swaraj. Well, at least, I loved listening to them; I sure hope I didn’t across as an idiot to them. Raj Zutshi had just returned from shooting for a bilingual Assamese-Hindi film on the origins of militancy in Assam, my home state. It’s a project I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on. The audios of the conversations we had are here.
Sanjay Swaraj, Yashpal Sharma, Danny Denzongpa, Shivajee Chandrabhushan & Raj Zutshi
We had the chance to watch a couple of other people interview the big man. Most journalists I know are highly knowledgeable people. But one of them had obviously come without proper research and asked weird questions. Danny saab handled them with wit and dignity and had us laughing on several occasions. There are some people you can’t take your eyes off – he’s one of them.
One of the things I observed was that his smile was so radiant and his demeanour so friendly, it’s amazing how he transformed himself to become a deadly villain in so many films – Bakhtawar in Hum, Kancha Cheena in Agneepath, Daaga in Yoddha, Katya in Ghatak etc. And one important thing to be noted here is, even in films with multiple villains, he was always the villain number 1. I can remember being pretty scared by his characters as a kid. Another point to be noted, your honour, is that even in extremely sh!tty films, he’s always given his 100%. I’ve never seen him slacking even in films like, well, I can’t name them anymore – I gotta be diplomatic; I’m still a new guy in the industry.
When our turn finally came, he might have been a little weary of answering probably the same set of questions over and over again, but he didn’t let that show. It was all for a good cause – the promotion of Frozen, the film he considers his finest work out of his 172 films. I got quite a kick out of it when I showed him the printout with the list of his films and he kept it.
I had a rough idea about what everyone would have asked him, so most of the questions I’d prepared were “different”, in that I asked about the craft of acting – about a couple of his scenes in Frozen, body language, mannerisms and gestures etc. The full audio interview is here. A year or two down the line, I just hope I don’t find that my end of the conversation was moronic.
The more people I meet, the more I realise that the big guns aren’t big without good reason. They all have truckloads of knowledge. Danny saab was no exception. Knowledge, class, dignity, wit – he has them all.
Yours truly, Danny Denzongpa, Manjeet Singh & Shivajee Chandrabhushan
Hard to believe that this man is the same chap who's murdered so many filmy fathers and kidnapped so many filmy mothers and girlfriends at the climax
The small blue contraption in Danny D's hand is a remote control (Agneepath-style) for the bomb under my arse in case I say something unbelievably stupid
Here are a few snippets from among the many entertaining things he said.
On the Frozen poster, which says ‘Winner of 18 Awards’: “Is line pe flash karo (saas-bahu serial style camerawork)…jimmy jib laga do.”
On Frozen’s 18 awards, to Shivajee: “Kahan hain bhai? Sabko is table pe rakh ke low-angle shot se interview lena chahiye tha. Aur dollars ko front mein rakh ke.”
Why he doesn’t tell the story of the film in interviews: “I don’t want to know the story before watching a film. I want to discover it as I watch.”
“Nowadays people are so adamant about dialog you can’t even move a comma” – with a meaningful grin at Shivajee.
One of the after effects of playing so many villains: “Shivajee had to stop me from throttling my daughter (in the film) because I’m so used to doing it.”
When he was asked to sing, this is how he declined: “30-35 saal villain ke role mein chillaate-chillaate vocal chords ke tukde-tukde ho gaye hain.”
A possible excuse for an item number in Frozen: “Cabaret dance in the army camp.”
He talked about his work in the tortuous 80s films. Then someone asked “Aap comedy films nahi karte?” The reply: “Kiye hain na, itne saare. 70s aur 80s mein.”
Click here for my write-up on Frozen. More importantly, catch it in theatres from May 8th onwards. It releases in Mumbai first. From there, it’ll travel to Kolkata, Delhi etc.
Tags: Acting, Danny Denzongpa, frozen, Raj Zutshi, Sanjay Swaraj, shivajee chandrabhushan, Yashpal Sharma
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
@ Kenny: Wow. Lucky You & Manjeet. Ab toh Mumbai jald-se-jald aana padegaa. photos are priceless. so is the audio clips.
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hey, now u can actually coax Danny D into casting you as his younger bro. (doesnt look old enough to play your father yet…)
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kenny and others: any idea which theatres its releasing in Mumbai?
awesome. oye lucky! lucky oye! waitin for frozen to freeze b’lore.
@ Jha saab: thats exactly wut i commented when i first saw this pic “how can kenny play his son… younger bro may be… but still, danny.d will get the girl in the end. LOL.”
@ magik: absolutely. for once i wudnt mind not rooting for our own kenny-G
Great confluence of good cinema and cinema lovers…Kenny…
Kcp…here is the picture..agree with your comments in the Manjeet Singh post..
Best of luck to the technical team of Frozen as well, Shanker Raman, Shan Mohamed, Siddharth, Sonali, Varkey and all those who are not listed in the poster…
Best wishes that we see more of them in the future…
Kenny- Really envious of you & Manjeet.Great going dude.Danny saab will always shine whatever be the film.But in movies like Frozen, he just leaves you spellbound.Watched Hum once again last night- my eyes were only glued to 2 legends who are incidentally good friends of each other- Amitabh Bachchan & Danny Denzongpa.
“Hard to believe that this man is the same chap who’s murdered so many filmy fathers and kidnapped so many filmy mothers and girlfriends at the climax”..
…..
Good funny anecdotes..Danny D does have some SOH….thanks…
Aag, Paani or Bhai Ji se nahi khelna…
Aag jalati hai…
Paani dubota hai…
or Bhai Ji tadpata hai…
sahi baat hai bhai… Danny Sir apni humility se tadpate hai…
Awesome!! Best of Luck to Shivajee and team…Danny sir looks as dynamic as ever..Bhaktawar!!!
@OM
Thank you :-)
brilliant work kenny…very intresting and insightful…this post deserves 200 comments…but since its not from a kashyap; or it has nothing to bitch…the so called film lovers will not like it…kenny plsss add lot of gossip; give scope to this frustrated people so that they can feel superior running down on other films…( note: i am a great fan of kashyap)
Hey i am so looking forward to see this movie. Is there any chance for it to release in Melbourne Australia? would love to go in independent cinema and see it with friends! Please help?
@Imran Polra
Hey, thanks for the interest shown. Presently we are dealing with a staggered release in India.
As you understand that it is an Independent Film, we don’t have big distributors attached with the project as of yet. But inshallah we would get a wider release as soon as possible….:-)
Inshallah..all will happen!!
Hi Kenny!!
This is Sneha. I am a trainee with Screen magazine, which is an entertainment weekly owned by the Express group.
Recently, we started a new feature on blogs in our magazine. We came across your blogs on PFC and found them very interesting. We were stuck trying to choose between the blogpost on the danny denzongpa interview and the review of the movie frozen and finally decided to feature the danny denzongpa interview. If you are okay with it, could you please send us a written confirmation?
Alongwith the blogpost, we also would like to feature an interview of yours. Tell us a little about yourself. Where you are from? What are you doing in Mumbai? How long have you been in Mumbai? What do you do? Just a small brief for the introduction.
And also please answer the following questions:
When did you start blogging?
Why did you choose PFC as your forum rather than have a blogspot of your own?
Where did you meet Danny Denzongpa?
How has blogging influenced/changed your life?
What was the most memorable moment of your interview with Danny Denzongpa?
Who would you recommend a movie like Frozen to?
Alongwith this, could you also send us your picture and a picture of your meeting with Danny Denzongpa? Also a still of the movie if you have one.
Please reply as soon as possible as we are on a tight deadline.
You can mail me the answers at sneha.padiyath@gmail.com.
Thanks & regards,
Sneha Padiyath
Screen
hey kenny…….
awesome man……………ur pics with denny sir r really cooooool….
luks like u vl b d next superstar of 2morrow….
i wish u a goood luck in ur life…..
in each & every step of ur life…..success vl cum thru ur way…..
all th best………