Sushant skips generations

About his very unorthodox selection of roles, Sushant says the irregular is the regular for him.

MUMBAI:
For actor Sushant Singh Rajput, it is time for a leap of generations that could fracture any actor’s performing abilities. But Sushant is all set to make a 110-year journey in the course of two films — Detective Byomkesh Bakshy and Paani.

While in Dibakar Bannerjee’s, Detective Byomkesh, Sushant plays a detective in Kolkata in the 1940s, in Shekhar Kapur’s Paani, he is cast as a ghetto-boy from Mumbai in the year 2050.

The cultural and chronological leap is tremendous. And Sushant, who with just three films has prepared a roster of character-portraits rather than star-vehicles for his career, is reveling in every bit of the challenge.

“I’m ready to make a 110-year leap from my last film to the next. In Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, though I had to go back in time to the 1940s, I had solid reference points. I watched a lot of films from that era. Then of course Dibakar was there to guide me.


“With Paani, there are no reference points. I’ve the freedom to interpret my character in any way I like. With Shekhar’s help I am trying to make my character in Paani believable,” he said.

About his very unorthodox selection of roles — as an aspiring cricketer in his big screen debut in Kai Po Che, a wastrel in Shuddh Desi Romance, a 1940s’ detective in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy and a ghetto-Romeo in futuristic Mumbai in Paani, Sushant says the irregular is the regular for him.

“I don’t think I’d be comfortable playing the typical loverboy romancing pretty girls in designer clothes. I’d die if I’ve to play stereotypical characters,” he added. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2014.

Load Next Story