After his searing act as Chandan Mahto, an unassuming truck driver who turns into a dreaded gangster, in Khakee: The Bihar Chapter last year, Avinash Tiwary is back at it. His portrayal of Dara Kadri in Shujaat Saudagar’s web series Bambai Meri Jaan is already the talk of the town. What is interesting is that both the web series are based on books inspired by real-life incidents—if Amit Lodha’s Bihar Diaries: The True Story of How Bihar’s Most Dangerous Criminal Was Caught was the source material for the first with the character of Chandan Mahto is based on the deadly sharp shooter, Pintu Mahto, Bambai Meri Jaan is based on S. Hussain Zaidi’s Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia and the character of Dara Kadri is largely inspired by India’s most-dreaded terrorist, Dawood Ibrahim.  

But ask him about his take on playing real-life gangsters, he says: “In my head, they were always fictional characters who were part of the story that had been given to me. I wanted to create them and make them as real and human as possible to help the audience get a sense of them. But I don’t think I ever thought of playing them in a certain way because they’re based on a real character or assumed to be based on the real character.” 

“Moreover, being a gangster is just a profession for a person, just as being an actor is for me—it is not my entire life, a profession can’t define an entire character. Once you think of characters just as gangsters, then you don’t know what their desires are, what drives them, what they fear, etc. Those things can only start coming up when you really dig deep enough to find their stories and create their persona for the world. And that has been my attempt,” adds the New York Film Academy alumnus. 

Although he is seen playing gangsters in two back-to-back series, he ensures that each shines on its own. In fact, his filmography so far is a testimonial of his versatility. While the now 38-year-old actor had started his career playing a villain in the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer TV series Yudh, before making his big debut as the eponymous hero in Imtiaz Ali’s Laila Majnu, he is also known for his nuanced performances in Bulbbul, The Girl on the Train, and the anthology, Ghost Stories. More recently, seen playing an IB officer in Bejoy Nambiar’s Kaala considers his versatility as his USP. “I think my versatility is my USP. The fact that I can I find myself limitless as an actor gives me the motivation to take on any kind of part,” he says as we sit down to talk about his dark acts. Excerpts from the interview:  

What made you take up the role of Dara which seems to be inspired by Dawood—perhaps the one gangster who has been played on screen the most number of times by multiple actors? 

The story is sourced from Hussain Zaidi’s Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia. The character of Dara Kadri is a composite of various characters that he has encountered as a crime reporter and written about over a period of time. I looked at it as a completely fictional story. I went through the script and started building the character from there with the resources available and under the guidance of my director.   

More than anything else, it was the world that Shujaat Saudagar had created in the script that fascinated me. Set right after Partition, it spans the next three decades. It talks about Mumbai being the port city and how its underbelly slowly got involved in various illegal activities and how it eventually became an underworld hub. 

What was it about Dara that made the character not only challenging but fresh to you as an actor?  

I had to put on weight. I remember having almost 14 inches waist during the shoot, and unfortunately, because the show had to be shot over a period of three years, I had to maintain that. This can be very exhausting for an actor. But what was most interesting was the emotional dynamics that I had to explore, the idea of hunger and how the desire to be a provider and protector of the family can eventually get drifted in and be swayed by the greed for power. It was exciting to figure out why he becomes the person that he became   

I think every actor is inspired by an attempt to explore how a man turns into a monster. I wanted to really be able to find and understand the relationship dynamics of Dara because the show, at the core of it, is that of a father and a son. We are attempting to strip the labels of relationships and make it a man versus man rather than a father versus son story where it eventually becomes a conflict of ideologies. 

If you had to pick your favourite scene, which one would that be and why? 

I think my favourite scene would be the one with Kay Kay sir, who plays Ismail Kadri, where the father and son come face to face. I think it’s in the eighth episode and it’s almost the culmination of the show. The whole conflict comes together in that scene. We see the father and son face to face, eye to eye, projecting their ideologies and having a confrontation about it. The scene was very nicely written and going by the response I have got, it also seems to be well executed.  

Chandan Mahto and now Dara…you seem to be particularly stellar as a grey character, especially gangsters. But an actor also runs the risk of getting typecast. What were the main differences in the core of these two characters that got you interested? 

Chandan Mahto was a truck driver who was exploited at one point in his life. He wanted to become a powerful man and the only way he understood going about it was to create fear in others. He is a guy who is slightly naïve and when he can’t find any other way out, he starts firing bullets. He is scared and violence is his defence mechanism.  

With Dara, I think the desire to conquer and lead the world is what drove him. The choices that he made were unfortunate. It is the motivation that drove these two characters that made them so different from each other –Chandan Matho’s drive was fear and Dara’s was this desire to conquer the world.  

Having said that, when you talk about typecasting, I think that’s one thing that I’m not really scared of because I have done such diverse characters right from my debut in Laila Majnu and Bulbbul to Khakee and Bambai Meri Jaan—although both are gangsters but entirely different from each other — and now Kaala where I am playing an IB officer.  

What according to you is the difference between playing a villain and a tragic hero? As an actor, how do you draw the line between the two? Also, plays any character convincingly, you need to somewhere understand empathise with his motivations. How much humanising of such dark characters is too much? 

There are artists who create interpretation of work, interpretation of characters, of the written word that has been provided to them. I am I would like to believe not as evolved. I am somewhere at this point, an actor who is exploring his parts and that’s the kind of route I would want to take in my career. I’m not providing you interpretations of characters or my own judgements of the characters to the audience, but rather I am attempting an exploration of the part, an exploration of this life that can come through via the written material provided to me. 

I don’t look at someone as a villain or a tragic hero. They are human beings who are born and go through various circumstances and they make choices in life which might be good or bad. Hence that is a judgement left to the audience rather than the actor.  

A character like Dara might have been brought up in hunger. I have not been brought up in hunger and hence I have no judgement regarding that. But if I put myself in a situation and explore choices that Dara had and the ones he opted for, I might be able to empathise with him. As an actor, you need to empathise with your characters.  And if you’re not able to empathise with them, you won’t be able to play them; you won’t be able to create a version of them. But because I am playing a human, there is no limitation or boundaries of how much I can humanise a character. You can’t quantify it; there are no parameters to judge how much humanising is enough. The best way to look at is whether I am being judgemental about the character or not; whether I am creating an interpretation of the character or an exploration of the character. If my intent is solid, if I’m able to empathise with the character and if I’m able to project an exploration of the character, then I shouldn’t be worried about whether I’m humanising him too much or too less.  

Are you a Method actor? How much of AvinashTiwary do you allow to seep into the characters that you play?  

I’m an actor who is willing to follow any process or go to any length to be able to deliver the shot the director needs. I don’t have one specific process. My major process is to align with my director’s process. The idea is to understand what he’s trying to tell through the story and how I can help him in doing so. I truly believe that actors are one of the mediums to tell the story that the director uses. He’s as important and useful as the furniture on set. And it’s up to the directors as to how they use their actors. My most important job as an actor is to be able to create the truth in the moments that a director sketches out for the characters.  

Although today we are hailing the rise of the relatable leading man, do you think in India where cinema is essentially mass entertainment and aspirational, the larger-than-life heroes can ever lose their charm? 

I have always believed that when you say ‘Bollywood hero’ or the idea of aspiration, actors are on public hoardings only for two reasons — either to sell a product or sell their films, and that’s the reality of the film industry and the stars around. Of course, being an actor, you would want to be able to do all of that, you would want to be able to entertain the audience and at the same time, create a certain brand for yourself. Everyone desires that and I’m no exception.Having said that, I truly believe that with the world opening up now to limit ourselves only to say that cinema is essentially mass entertainment and just aspirational, would be limiting what impact cinema can  have. Yes it is for mass entertainment, but it is not only to create escapism for people I’m sure everything that we watch creates a deeper nuance for ourselves. It creates some newer insight into our lives that we may choose to lead or not. And that is what cinema does. It creates insights into your life, into your relationship, into your struggles, your joys, your sadness and the actions are left to the audience always. The audience can never not be responsible for the choices they make. And insightful cinema has a lot more to do than just entertainment.  

You played the bonafide Bollywood hero in Laila Majnu. That’s the dream most actors land in Bollywood with. It was a big project, with a big banner and director but didn’t get that much BO numbers. Do you think if that movie was a hit, you might have had a different, much safer but maybe less interesting, career path? 

I’ve been acting since 2003. I was doing theater. Post that, I went to New York Film Academy to train myself. After returning, I started doing a few DD National shows, thanks to which I have a house in the city now! But it took some time to get a proper opportunity in the movies and it came in the form of Laila Majnu (2018). Unfortunately, the film disappeared by the end of the first week. Having put three years into the film, I was completely heartbroken. I didn’t know if what I was doing was right, whether it would give me any direction. I was questioning my decision to be in this profession, I was even contemplating of leaving this industry. 

But thankfully, my parents and my friends believed in me. It is because of their energy that I could start dreaming again. Laila Majnu gave me the credibility as actor and that helped me get the projects that followed. I don’t know what would have happened if that movie had worked at the box office but what it has done for me is beyond my imagination.  

So yes, there’s a learning that I had from experience and that is you put in all the hard work and you may not get the result that you want, but it will come to you one day for sure. Your hard work doesn’t go to waste no matter what.