Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor will never forget the words of his father, veteran actor Pankaj Kapur: “Hamlet is that role that will help you find yourself as an actor”.
Kapoor understood what those words truly meant when he began filming director Vishal Bharadwaj’s interpretation of the play-within-a-play tragedy, out in the UAE this Thursday. He plays the title role in the Bollywood adaptation set in Kashmir, where the troubled Prince Of Denmark from the tragedy becomes a philosophy student.
“I always felt inadequate throughout the making of the film, I wasn’t sure if I will be able to pull this character off,” said Kapoor in an interview with tabloid! in Dubai last week.
“At the back of my mind, I also knew that I may never get such a challenging role again. But Haider is so different. It required me to change myself completely. I had to go through a physical, emotional and psychological transformation.”
Kapoor, who is famously finicky about appearances, how his hair is combed and how he appears in a photograph, went bald for the role and wore contact lenses (which he claims did strange things to him during the winter).
But if it’s a Bharadwaj film, then nobody questions its director.
Bharadwaj, who worked with Kapoor in the dark, edgy twin drama Kaminey, has an impeccable track record for putting the Bard’s classics into Indian reality.
His Omkara, which had its roots in the tragedy Othello, gave Bollywood’s suave actor Saif Ali Khan the role of a lifetime. His uncouth villain act as Langda Tyagi (the evil Iago) remains his career-defining role. To be in a Bharadwaj film is a plum opportunity for any actor looking to redefine his image. Nobody understands that better than Kapoor, who has acted in over two dozen films with a majority of them being charming, goofy, lover roles.
“But here my biggest challenge was that at any point the viewer shouldn’t feel that he’s watching Shahid Kapoor, but that he’s watching Haider,” said Kapoor, who admits to being mildly bored while watching Hamlet during his teens.
“My father is a huge fan of Shakespeare and he has spoken to me a lot... but when you are a student and asked to read a chapter of Shakespeare, my first instinct was to say: ‘but, I don’t want to do it’,” said Kapoor, who admits that he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the class. He may not have been bookish while growing up, but learnt all that and more while working in a Bharadwaj film.
“Lots of people feel that Vishal sir will be this taskmaster, but he’s so chilled out on sets... He surrounds you with wonderfully talented actors and creates this milieu. He changes your physicality and as an actor I am joining the dots that he set up. It’s the opportunity he gives you and the way he packages everything — he makes it inevitable for you to do something different.”
Haider also boasts acting heavyweights Irrfan Khan and Tabu and the intense actor Kay Kay Menon. The role of Ophelia is played by Bollywood’s rising star Shraddha Kapoor. She plays Arshia, a young journalist in Kashmir. The film may be packed with talent, but the young actors have been chosen to peddle the film during press junkets.
“You all know by now that the aspect of falling in love with a troubled character is not really new to me. Considering my last two films, I feel like I have been given the task of fixing problematic children,” said Shraddha, alluding to her last two hits, Aashiqui 2 and Ek Villain. In the former, she played a singer who was in a toxic relationship with her alcoholic-but-talented mentor and in Ek Villain, she married a reformed murderer.
“But I have to say fixing was the highest level I have gone to,” she said looking at her hero fondly.
“I talk to skulls. So how [much] worse can it get now,” said Kapoor joining in on her joke. The atmosphere is convivial between them and you wonder how they hammered out a tragedy. Ask them about the experience of filming in a troubled region like Kashmir, and they say: “I threw snow at her and she threw snow back at me. Can you imagine how much that hurt?”
While some may find it befuddling that they are trivialising grim issues, Kapoor explains: “If you don’t trivialise something substantial, then you may not find too many people watching it.” He just nailed the predicament of every Bollywood filmmaker who’s on a perennial quest to balance economics and art.
“At one point during Haider’s making, there was a debate whether to add a music video. But we decided not to because it’s an honest film. Though there’s some dancing in Haider, a stylish music video would take away something from the film,” said Kapoor. A music video in a Bollywood film is usually a peppy track accompanied by a zany video. It has no particular relevance to the story, but it brings in the viewers.
Bharadwaj has also tweaked some of the traits that defined Hamlet in his version.
“What you may like about Haider is that he’s not passive. Hamlet is known to be a character who couldn’t make up his mind and was brooding. But we have tried to make Haider a lot more active and aggressive.” But did the director shy away from exploring the sexual undertones between Haider and his mother, played by Tabu?
“I always say this: ‘if you are looking for the Oedipus complex, you will find it. But if you are not looking for it, you will never find it’. It’s all very subliminal.”
