In ZEE5’s Kadak Singh, Pankaj Tripathi is A K Shrivastava, an honest and tenacious officer with the Department of Financial Crimes investigating a high-stakes chit fund scam. We first meet him as he is regaining consciousness in a hospital after an alleged suicide attempt. He is unable to recall most incidents and people from the immediate past, and this includes his daughter. It seems he is suffering from retrograde amnesia.  

The thriller is built on a Rashomonesque premise with multiple characters narrating their version of events mixing facts with fiction making the audience eventually question everything—even the accuracy of Kadak Singh’s current medical diagnosis. 

We talk to the ace actor about the Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury directorial and his take on Indian cinema today. Excerpts: 

 

1. In the movie, Kadak Singh, the protagonist, is seen mostly confined to his bed; he is hardly the ‘hero’ we usually see on screen. What made you take up such an unconventional role? What was the most challenging bit? 

 

It was written very well. He is not a commercial movie hero. Real-life heroes don’t break into dialoguebaazi; their actions make them heroes; they don’t consider themselves as one or act like one. You will find such a man in every other government office. I had not done anything like this before. The character had to keep the audience oscillate between trust and mistrust – you are never absolutely sure if he actually has amnesia or if he is weaving an intricate web of lies. The most difficult part was to find the right balance so that I don’t end up overplaying or underplaying the character.  

 

2. You have essayed some rather progressive and supportive fathers in movies including in Bareily Ki Barfi, Gunjan Saxena, and more recently OMG2. But Kadak Singh is kind of an absent father who is more engrossed in his work. How difficult was it to make this character endearing and not toxic?  

 

He is not a toxic character. He is concerned about his children but at the same time, he is a workaholic. He can’t help it. He works under the belief that the children are capable of taking care of themselves.  

 

3. You have a daughter and you have played some iconic girl dads on screen. Does that help in any way to play father of daughters this well? 

 

I am extremely fond of daughters; I never manage to scold or be too strict with my own daughter. Being a father of a daughter has made me evolve as a man. So, maybe somewhere that gets reflected in the characters I pick. But then, if you see, I make a terrible father when it comes to boys—look at Mirzapur’s Kaleen Bhaiyaa …even in this movie I am pretty stern when it comes to the son [chuckles]. I think daughters bring out the best in me! But then, I was a pretty good dad to a son in OMG2 nonetheless. I am 48 now and the movies had made me a dad when I was 35 [chuckles] – luckily now we are seeing some interesting father-daughter/son relationships on screen, and fathers are trending!  

But the character I play in this movie is not just a father—he has three women in his life, the girlfriend, the daughter, and the nurse, and he has a beautiful and loving relationship with each. I am not only inspired and influenced by women from literature but also by the women around me.  I have five women in my house—apart from my wife and daughter, I have three house helps who hail from different parts of the country. I am inspired by all of them on a daily basis. Be it aesthetics, colours, emotions, women make the world beautiful, and livable.  

 

4. Today, toxic and misogynistic men are making a robust comeback in Hindi cinema in an uber glamourized avatar. These dark and complex characters can often be an actor’s delight. Do you see yourself playing such characters in future?  

 

I have not yet got any such script but I think it would be very difficult for me to play such a character. I have no qualms playing dark characters — Kaleen Bhaiyaa is an embodiment of patriarchy, but his way of expressing it is very different. There is space for all kind of cinema; and I am sure I would find enough challenging roles even if I avoid playing such characters. 

 

5. So, what is your basic criteria for picking a character? 

 

I want to be part of stories that I like, stories that convince me. I can’t fly in the air and kick villains. You will not see me playing a character that singlehandedly bashes up ten people. This is because I am not convinced that it can happen in real life. I can at the most tackle two or three people but if I hit them, I will also get hurt – Mard ko dard nehi hota hai is a myth. Instead of playing stereotypical hypermasculine, pain-resistant heroes that don’t exist in the real world, I want to be part of stories that portray real men replete with their vulnerabilities.  

 

6. And you almost become those characters while playing them. How do living all these different lives on screen impact you as a person? 

 

I always take home something or the other from the characters I play. Acting makes you a better person. Sometimes it actually feels like you have lived those lives. After pack-up, it takes me some time, sometimes that can be three/four days, to get back to my reality. Just as computers need a full system reset, we actors also need to reset our minds after getting out of a character and also before going into a character—you create the character history, you do your research, you get into the text, and eventually your brain starts thinking and behaving like the character.  

 

7. And what is your take on censorship especially given the excessive sex and violence shown on OTT these days? 

 

If you are a responsible filmmaker, you will know the demand of the script and create content accordingly. Otherwise, you will indulge in gratuitous sex and violence to sensationalise the content and grab attention through that. What happened was that gaaliyon ka season shuru ho gaya…ek gaali waali series hit ho gayi, toh gaaliyon ki bharmar hone lagi.  

OMG2 had a bold subject, it talks about sex. But it talks about the importance of sex education among teenagers. It released in the theatres as well as on OTT and is still doing well. The intention is what actually determines the content. If the intent of the story teller is good then you can show what you need to show. But mostly the intent is to create an easy hit at the box office. Censorship on art, how much is too much, if it is required at all…all this is part of a long and complex conversation. 

 

8. Now that you are one of the busiest actors in the industry how has it changed your process of selecting scripts?  

 

It has changed a lot. Now I have become quite selective; I really spend time with the script, I think about the character, I ask myself questions, before agreeing to be part of a project. I am still finishing my Covid backlog. The shooting of whatever films I had signed before or during Covid lockdowns will get over by the end of this month and I am starting the new year with a fresh slate and you will get to see me in some interesting new avatars! 

 

9. What can you tell about Main Atal Hun? How difficult it is to play such an iconic personality especially someone whose life is documented on camera?  

 

The crucial part is to decide how much to imitate; it should look like you are playing the person, but it should not look like you are mimicking him. In such cases acting can very easily turn into mimicry. For example, whether to imitate the speech or the thought. I believe in getting into the internal aspects of the character, imbibing his thoughts, instead of focusing on imitating the person’s physicality. 

The Pankaj Tripathi that lives within me makes the Pankaj Tripathi walk, talk, interact in a certain way. But not many people get to know that Pankaj Tripathi that lives inside. Many people think I am a humble person, but you never know, maybe that Pankaj Tripathi’s intelligence is making me act like a humble person! It is crucial to understand that inner person to grasp the action of the outer self. That is precisely what I have attempted to do in the movie.  

Apart from playing late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the highly anticipated biographical film Main Atal Hoon (the movie is scheduled to hit the theatres on January 19,2024), the National Film Award-winning actor, will be seen reprising his iconic characters of Kaleen Bhaiya and Madhav Mishra in Mirzapur season 3 and Criminal Justice season 4 respectively.