DIFFERENT strokes

JITESH PILLAAI CHATS WITH NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, WHO HAS MADE A HABIT OF GIVING HIS UNIQUE TOUCH TO ALL HIS ROLES

- JITESH PILLAAI

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the kind of actor who grows on you. He peels off layer after layer of his character, and you sit mesmerised, marvelling at his virtuosity. In-person, he can go from being this intense student of cinema to being a raconteur who can regale you with stories for hours. It's not easy to pigeonhole him into one single slot. He can play a killer, a bumpkin, a gangster, a poet, and a common man with equal measure. And he makes sure you root for him even when he's evil personified. He's become Mr. Dependable for filmmakers. They cast him with the blind assurance that he'd surely come through. And he does so every time. He doesn't follow trends but goes where his heart takes him, not caring about what the world thinks of him. Presenting excerpts from an engaging chat with the actor who could never do no wrong.

When you joined NSD to become an actor, who did you first speak to?

I just spoke to myself. I come from a small village where the environment was not the kind where someone would motivate you to become an actor. Ever since I wanted to become an actor, everyone, including my relatives, would comment on my looks and say I should stop thinking of becoming one. But after my graduation, I realised that I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. I had seen this film called Ek Doctor Ki Maut, and there was a dialogue in the film which changed my life. It was Pankaj Kapur saying, "The moon and stars in the universe have secrets and there are some people who challenge those secrets." That stuck in my mind, and I said to myself that I had to do something to challenge myself. What I wanted to do was not clear. Then one day, someone took me to a theatre to see a play, and I realised that this was it! I would never get bored of playing different characters and discovering new things. Then someone suggested that I should join NSD. That was how my journey started.