Sunday 24 / November / 2024
Muscat: Years of cricket and a place in the school team helped Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor mentally and physically prepare for his role as a cricketer in his film ‘Jersey’, which is now playing in cinemas across Oman and the rest of the world.
In the film, the actor dons the role of Arjun Talwar, a talented batsman who failed to taste success despite having the skills to do so and gets a chance of redemption when he is at his lowest. “Cricket is a game I have always loved: I loved playing cricket when I was a kid, I played hours of cricket day in, day out. I was in my school team,” revealed Kapoor.
“Cricket is a game I have followed closely: I love the sport, I watch it a lot, I have played a lot many years ago, but then of course, life happened and things moved on and I became an actor.
“So when this film came to me, I felt that I have played enough cricket to not start from zero…kinda start from a three or a four, and then hopefully take it to an eight or a nine,” he added. “When you play professional cricket, you need to learn cricket in a very different way. You have to learn it technically and from a different point of view.”
Shahid Kapoor was speaking to Evita Louis of TFM on Thursday, to coincide with the launch of ‘Jersey’. The film centres on Kapoor’s character Arjun, an ex-cricketer struggling to make ends meet, who wants to fulfil his child’s wish of getting a cricket jersey. In the process, he is forced to face his past and finds himself at a crossroads when it comes to his future. “It did take me a lot of time, I think I practiced for almost six months, and we shot for about 35 or 36 days for the cricket shown in the film,” he added.
“It was very demanding, but also very rewarding, because anyone who is a cricket lover does want to play on a legit pitch inside a legit stadium, with a season ball and wants to listen to that crack of the leather hitting the wood of the bat: That sound is just special.”
The film also marks Shahid’s first collaboration with actress Mrunal Thakur, who plays his long-suffering wife Vidhya.
“Mrunal is very chill: I met her, we got along instantly,” he recalled. “She is a very talented actor, she is doing some very good work, and she brings a lot of fresh energy. She was a great choice for the character she is playing. She plays the character very bravely, and she plays a strong-minded wife who does not necessarily agree with what her husband wants to do.
“She is the antagonist to Arjun’s protagonist, and she was very brave in going on the front foot and doing that role, so a lot of power to her for that,” he said. “We had a lot of fun…we get along, she’s a fun girl, so it was cool. She was very normal, she was laughing, she was giggling, she was in a happy mood, she was not very formal and on the back foot and stuff.” The film also touches on the bonds of fatherhood, and for Kapoor, in more ways than one: His father Pankaj Kapoor plays a coach who has a hugely influential role in Arjun’s cricketing career and comeback.
“It felt a little crazy, because here was my own dad, and here was me playing a dad for the first time after having become a dad for the first time,” revealed Kapoor. “It was like life coming full circle, and was very special. This experience is something that I am gonna carry with me as a great memory.”
The complexity of Arjun Talwar’s character might have put off some actors, but for Shahid, it is just another role in his repertoire of complex people.
A string of complex characters - Aditya Kashyap in Jab We Met, Nawab Malik in World War II-era film Rangoon and titular character Haider Meer in Haider – have shown Shahid Kapoor’s effortless skill and versatility as an actor.
“Maybe it is difficult for the audience, but it is not difficult for me…otherwise I would not be a normal person, would I?” he quipped. “For me, the distinction is very solid. When I am on set, I am in the zone, but that’s it. I have done a few of these kinds of characters, so I know how to separate myself from them. By the time I sit in my car after we have wrapped for the day, I am disconnected from the character.”
