`Awards are like car accessories'
|
Atul Kulkarni has played a range of roles with great ease. He tells IVAN T. that the wall between commercial and art films is gradually disappearing
|
Atul Kulkarni has great regard for Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit.
STARDOM IS rarely this terrestrial. The man has won two National Awards for Best Actor, I remind myself; he's received both critical and popular acclaim for his performances, he's got a successful career in theatre. And yet all I can really think of at the moment is just how incredibly nice he is. Atul Kulkarni can do that to you.
In Bangalore to perform his latest Marathi play Samudra (which pulled off the seemingly impossible task of running to near-packed houses in consecutive shows on a Sunday morning), Atul took some time off to chat with The Hindu. The actor who played a Hindu fundamentalist in Hey Ram, an underworld don in Chandni Bar, an encounter specialist cop in Dum, and a Page 1 journalist in Page 3, says that he doesn't consciously look for films making a statement. "Indian cinema itself is changing, and I've been fortunate to just be in the right place at the right time. Filmmakers are making movies nobody would have dared to make five years back, so with me it's been more about saying `no' to films than saying `yes'. I don't set out to look for films with a message."
So what does he look for in a film? "Many things - the story, the role... the money! But what's most important is what other roles I'm doing at the moment. So I might refuse a film which I might have taken up a month back, because I'm already doing a similar role."
Home and the world
Born in Belgaum, Atul grew up in Solapur, Maharashtra, where he cut his teeth on amateur theatre. After a stint at the National School of Drama, he played Mahatma Gandhi in the hugely controversial play Gandhi vs. Gandhi. Kamal Hassan noticed, and Hey Ram followed. To date, Atul has acted in plays and movies in seven languages (including Kannada, in his debut film Bhava Geethe), but he admits that it takes effort. "It's much more difficult to act in languages you're not familiar with, whose nuances you don't know. I have to spend much more time with the script. If the scene is at 9.00 a.m. I'll wake up at 4.30 and start preparing, which I wouldn't have to do otherwise."
Apart from his more gritty roles, Atul also has to his credit classical villain roles in Dum and Run, to which he admits to taking a different approach. "I try to play these illogical roles moment by moment, trying to make each particular shot believable. I don't delve into the history or motivation of the character, simply because it's impossible. An Encounter Shankar (the cop in Dum) just doesn't exist in real life. He cannot exist. So I maintain a certain level of realism, but I also consciously increase the stylisation of the character." He insists that it's not as simple as it looks. "To say `oh, bees saal baad mile bichadke' a thousand times is very difficult. And I have great respect for Amitji, for Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit - who could do that."
But Atul sees the walls between "commercial" and "art" cinema falling. "Chandni Bar did much better, commercially, than many other "mainstream" films. Look at what Aamir Khan is doing. Look at Black. Categories are not so definite anymore, and I think this is because audience themselves are changing. My personal opinion is that it's due largely to television. Audiences now know about world cinema. Laypeople talk about close-ups, mid close-ups. They aren't satisfied with star appeal anymore. TV has actually educated audience." He pauses, and adds sotto voce, "Of course, whether it's the right kind of education, I don't know".
At the recent International Film Festival of Kerala, Atul received the unique honour of winning the "Technical Excellence Award", previously given only to cinematographers, sound editors and the like. He reveals that, to him, "awards are like accessories to cars. Like a rear-view mirror, which can build your confidence, but can't let you drive the car by itself. It's recognition, and it's good, but it has its place."
Atul says that while his film schedule doesn't allow him to pursue commercial Marathi theatre, he does manage to act in more offbeat productions. Theatre, he says, helps him hone his skills as an actor. "When you do the same scene, over and over again, you think constantly of how you can do it better. You try to improvise. All this you can never get in film."
But how relevant are theatre's concerns today? "Theatre can't be separate from the socio-political issues of the time. But these are times when everything seems to be right for the urban educated playwright. The urge to make a statement has been greatly reduced. I hope that with time, playwrights will start to write not just about problems that they see, but problems that they feel." Yet he is wary of plays that seek to effect change themselves. "I see theatre as being a reflection to people of what already exists. The theatre that claims to bring about change is a fraud. But right now, we're in a stage where we don't even feel the need to hold up that mirror. Everything's measured in terms of how `fun' it is. Look at your shopping hangouts, your city supplements." A hint of a smile at that last one.
Competitions out
Amateur theatre, says Atul, provides very good unofficial training for actors, but he is vehemently critical of competitions. "You start to work for the prize, not for the play", he says. "Gimmicks come in. It becomes a board exam - you look at previous years' exam papers, who did well, what the expected questions are. I never judge competitions, and I'm completely against them."
But Atul's life, as he emphasises, is not just about acting. After the general elections, he wrote a piece in the Hindi newspaper Loksatta, entitled "Pardon Us Soniaji", about the threats of self-tonsure made by some women politicians. "I got a lot of mail, both for and against my article, and I realised that people always listen when a public figure, an actor, says something. I thought I should try to use this standing, and this popularity. So I started a discussion forum on my website (www.atulkulkarni.com) , to debate these larger political issues." In an industry, which is heavily politicised but still painstakingly apolitical, his commitment is heartening.
"Acting is a very small part of my life. I wouldn't be a sad man if I can't act. It's not even my passion. Life is my passion."
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
