Arjun Rampal has displayed shades of black and grey in films like Om Shanti Om, Ra.One, Crakk, and Dhaakad. The actor with a man-mountain aura is now gearing up for the web-series Rana Naidu Season 2 that streams on Netflix this Friday.
And in an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actor spoke about his entrance into this world of darkness and dazzle, playing an antagonist again, and what has changed about the industry post the pandemic.
I hope it gets more stylish and more, I don’t know, darker or not, but, I think there’s a lot more drama. The conflict is quite amazing. I haven’t played a character like this, you know, who is so brutal and has been given the liberty and flexibility of being so wild. I don’t think I as an actor have been able to explore it. So, I think that’s what makes it quite unique for this character. When Karan and I had discussed this part, for me, it was very important that, even if you’re playing the antagonist or whatever, everybody according to me is a human. And nobody, if you’re playing somebody who is the antagonist, doesn’t believe he’s a bad guy.For that, he needs to have a very strong belief system. And, that belief system, I think, was incorporated with a sense of levity, which was important. Otherwise, it gets too serious and dark. So it’s quite funny as well. How, you see in a Scorsese film, all of them, even if they’re killing somebody, sometimes you end up, like, laughing or smiling. So, we’ve tried to achieve that. So let’s see, how that pans out. I think Rauf comes with quite a strong enough belief system. He really is there for his community, for his people. And, when Rana comes and disturbs that, then he’s really, you know, going into the hornets nest.
They’re just not boring (Laughs). I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of people ask me the same question, but it’s the same thing. It’s just a little bit more exciting. When you’re playing the protagonist in most films, if the protagonist is not flawed in the case of Rana Naidu, that’s not the case, and that’s why we like the series. Right? Everybody’s kind of flawed. But in general, when you play a protagonist, you’re mister goody good shoes, which none of those people are in real life. When you’re playing a bad guy, okay, you’re, like, really, really bad, which none of us are exact in, real life. So to play characters, which go beyond your thing, you then choose which one is more exciting to do.And I think what happens when you play characters like this is, you pull so far away from your comfort zone. You know, there is a risk about how audiences will take it and how they will react to you. You are kind of breaking away from the stereotypical thing of creating an image, you know, which is something which I never wanted to be stuck or weighed down by.And I think what happens when you play characters like this is, you pull so far away from your comfort zone. You know, there is a risk about how audiences will take it and how they will react to you. You are kind of breaking away from the stereotypical thing of creating an image, you know, which is something which I never wanted to be stuck or weighed down by. So, when you take a risk, when you do something which is totally out of the box, you know, which people don’t expect you to play, then I think you’re being true to your work. Because at the end of the day, the reason why we have careers which go over twenty five years, thirty years, going to forty years, which some of the good actors have, is because there’s always an element of surprise, which this profession allows you to have. And, you should never give that up for anything or trade that or compensate for anything.You have done such a variety of films in your career, right from Ra.One to Raajneeti to D-Day to Inkaar. What I feel is that after the pandemic, filmmakers and actors have become slightly scared to take risks. So as an actor, do you miss those days when filmmakers and actors actually told different stories and they actually took risks
Well, I’m glad you’ve noticed my body of work, but the thing is that, I don’t think people are not taking risks. People are definitely taking risks. Through this period, from the pandemic to now, I have actually finished about eight to 10 films. And all of them are very different kinds of movies. I’m just waiting for them to be released. Some have got into trouble with the censor board. Some are waiting for the right time to release it. There’s Aparna Sen’s The Rapist, again, a very different kind of a subject, with Konkona. Beautiful story. Very, very, emotional. I think one of Aparna’s best films, that’s ready. It’s waiting for release. [With Firstpost Input]
