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Doing it all for a role... .
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He went and lived with small-time gangsters and occupants of shanties to bag the role of Chhotu in Ram Gopal Varma's forthcoming "Company". He prefers to draw biographical sketches of the character he plays in his films. He is Vivek Oberoi, veteran actor Suresh Oberoi's son who is the new rising star of Bollywood. ZIYA US SALAM speaks to the upcoming method actor... .
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THERE WERE kids attending to nature's call by the roadside. A few yards away men were cleaning their gums of the residue of leavened food particles with twigs of neem. Others walked around, with an unstifled yawn, one hand holding on to the dhoti. The smell all around was putrid and there were layers of dirt on their darkened brown bodies. Amid them settled a wannabe film star, helping himself to a glass of tea -- with a spoon left in it after two helpings of heaped spoons of sugar -- served by Chhotu, his nails blackened with soot. No flashing bulbs. No neon lights. Just the drudgery of real life, the call of real education. His own acting laboratory. Sharing space with him were other men, billowing smoke rings, twirling their gold chain around their ring finger, ruffling their unruly hair. There were kebab-sellers, pavement barber shops sharing space with rats and dogs.
Never mind for the little star took it all in his stride, mingled with the crowd, observed their mannerism - some sociologists will call it the exercise of a participant observer - and picked up their language, sprinkled it with his own slightly more civil dialect, but retained all along the crudity, the coarseness of their cussed words. He spoke the way they do. He dressed the way they do. He walked the way they do. And then walked into the office of a leading film-maker, scaring the life out of him. He did not ask for the role of the gangster. He demanded it. And on the basis of one polished performance enacted on the stage of life, he bagged it. Well, the wannabe star was veteran artiste Suresh Oberoi's son, Vivek, and the film-maker was Ram Gopal Varma, the man who had given a definite direction to the careers of Urmila Matondkar, Fardeen Khan and Sushant Singh in his films like "Rangeela", "Jungle" and "Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya". Now was the turn of Vivek Oberoi to stake his claim to fame with Varma's latest, "Company".
Says Vivek, who was in Delhi this past week on a stopover to Kulu-Manali where he is shooting for Yash Chopra-Mani Ratnam's "Saathiya", "I had approached Ramuji - Ram Gopal Varma - for a role in `Jungle' But he had already signed Fardeen Khan. Himanshu Malik's role was offered but I declined. He told me to wait for another year while he completed `Jungle'. I spent that year in gym, attended acting classes and met him after exactly a year. At that time he was rushing abroad. After just one look, he said, `I doubt if you can handle this role of a street toughie. You look too much of a soft, romantic guy. You wait for a suitable subject.' I asked him to give me a week's time. He agreed as he was going to Morocco and would not be around for a few days. I met him a few days later during which I visited slums, the ghettoes. I actually lived there, mingled with the people over there, spoke their language, drank tea the way they do - with a clear slurping sound - and even smoked bidis with them."
Well, his preparation for the role of Chandu did not end there. Vivek, to begin with, was found too fair by Varma. So he went and tanned himself, rubbed lots of oils on his body, sun-bathed daily. "I tanned myself through oils and other creams to look darker for `Company'. I would spend one hour and 20 minutes rubbing myself every morning through the week."
Then came the clincher. Vivek went and created a biography of the character he was to play in the film. "I imagined his family, thought of his parents, his house, shot some pictures in the kind of clothes he would be wearing and then went back to Ramuji. This time, I did not go and ask for the role. I stalked into the office, shocked the receptionist on entry. The still shell-shocked receptionist sent me in more out of fear. I entered Ramuji's cabin. He did not recognise me. I did not give any polite introduction. Instead, I threw the photo album on his table, started a bidi and spoke like a toughie. Then he agreed that I could carry off the tough guy act."
From the slums of Mumbai to Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya - where "Company" was shot in part -- was a long journey that started with that significant step Vivek took by living with people involved with the seamier side of things. "Company' in his kitty, Vivek is now on to other projects. Again, doing something similar. Like building biographical sketches of his characters. And now the "Gangster" is busy trying to give that something extra to the projects following his debut film. "I am working in `Saathiya'. Then there is `Road' with Manoj Vajpayee and `Dum' with Moranis. It is directed by E. Niwas, a Ram Gopal Varma protégé who has earlier made `Shool'.
What about the preparations?"I don't just act. I don't try to impart any personal nuances to the character. I don't look at a role as an opportunity to showcase what I can do. I try to think like the character, live his life, try to behave the way he would in a given situation. For instance in `Saathiya', I play a normal human being, not a larger than life figure. The character laughs, cries.''
The youngster might be doing his own thing his own way but he is learning the ways of Bollywood fast. "I have been fortunate with my directors. They give me the freedom to do a scene the way I would like to do. I don't believe in the fundamentals of the hero-villain business. I would like to try my hand at every role. If I am a gangster in `Company' then I am also playing a soft, romantic guy in Yash Chopra's film. I don't want to be straitjacketed in my approach." And then there are rumours of his signing films with Karan Johar and other bigwigs simply on the strength of his performance in "Company" - incidentally the film is due to release later this month.
Well, if his performances in the forthcoming films are as good as his preparations this "method actor" should be around for a long, long time.
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