Anil Kapoor, who played Kamal Mehra, the patriarch in Zoya Akhtar’s ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ reveals how he had psych himself to play a father character, and followed a strategic plan to extend his career. In an interaction with DNA, Anil Kapoor speaks his heart out.
As he decided to play a father to Ranveer Singh, Anil corrects saying, “In my head, Ranveer (Singh) is playing my son; I am not playing his father. So you have to see it this way: I am playing a patriarch. You need conviction to play such a character.” At first he had completely turned down the role, but later on Zoya’s conviction, he took up the part. He said, “When Zoya came to me, she said ‘Anil, I am coming to you as a lead’. I am the lead in DDD. If I do a Race also or if I do Welcome or No Entry, I am playing the lead. I am packaging it and making it an ensemble because I am not a solo hero. See, it’s a very strategic plan I am following so that I can extend my journey as an actor. Every actor has to plan this to extend his career.”
So while, playing a character like Kamal Mehra was always a part of Anil’s plan, he convinced himself hard. “One of the reasons I agreed to play a father in DDD is to stop that perception of me that I have of being eternally young. People talk about a fountain of youth that I have discovered. I didn’t want to live with this image. It’s a trap. I just want to get out of it because it’s a very tiring trap. And I should not be delusional, like actors become, said Anil adding, “Now I am in my 50s, I have grown children and my son is about to make his debut in films… I decided to get out of this trap.”
With ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ Anil felt like he can come out of this trap as he said, “I feel family is the best genre to play the patriarch in, rather than playing a boring Bombay elderly mafia don just because it sounds good.”