Anupam Kher: I don’t want to be known as just another actor!

At 28, Anupam Kher made his debut playing B V Pradhan, a man in his late sixties, in the Mahesh Bhatt classic, ‘Saaransh’. Forty one years later, he plays a 69 year-old, his actual age today, in Yash Raj Films’s ‘Vijay 69’. About how he felt playing his age on screen, he smiles and quips, “I feel I’m 28!”

In between have come 542 films, innumerable awards and accolades, and needless to add, several challenges. He has been a producer, director, occasional singer and an acting teacher. 

As he puts it: “I say this without any arrogance and with complete humility and gratitude: I have never wanted to be just another actor. If you get an opportunity, you can’t miss to try and outdo yourself. I consider myself very fortunate to be in the world of entertainment where if you are mentally and physically fit, even age of 90 is just a number.”

Anupam calls his mother, now 86 and with a “rod in her leg”, as his greatest inspiration. “She refuses help even while ascending stairs and never complains about anything, saying ‘I will age if I grumble.’ I am also inspired by talents like Amrish Puri, Dev Anand, Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood who never let age come in their way. Clint Eastwood started a new film at the age of 93 and told his wonderstruck musician-friend Toby Keith, ‘I don’t let the old man in,’ and the latter made an immortal song out of it,” he says.

In ‘Vijay 69’, Anupam plays a crabby swimming coach who, at 69, decides to participate in a triathlon, an athletic contest consisting of swimming, cycling and long-distance running. “The film has a message for all, especially the young generation and senior citizens. Most people meet themselves after the age of 40 with a life’s ‘report card’ on what they wanted to be and where they actually are. Our fingerprints reveal that God has made each of us unique, but it is life’s compromises, due to circumstances, that make us ordinary or mediocre, unless we decide otherwise.” 

Anupam mentions the consternation he faced when he signed his first film. “I knew that my character was unforgettable, but they all felt that I would be typecast after my debut. Today, I consider B V Pradhan and Vijay to be among the top five roles I have played. A K Hangal had been typecast in Hindi cinema as an old man and I was told, ‘Aap Hanglaa jaaoge!’ (You’ll become a Hangal). Of course, many never knew me then and thought I was actually old! And if I make you all again forget that Vijay is Anupam Kher, it will be a great achievement,” he adds.

Anupam learnt swimming especially for this film when the director had assured him that it could have been managed through VFX. On that note, he reveals an interesting tale: “I was once approached for the main villain’s role in a film that needed me to be a swimmer. I knew that the shooting was to take place four months later and nonchalantly agreed, as I could learn swimming in the interim. But the coach put me directly in the deep end and I developed a fear of water that I conquered only now. I was sacked and Amrish Puri-ji came in.”