Arjun Rampal’s Bollywood portfolio is impressively diverse, featuring main leads as well supporting parts, positive roles as well as negative ones. He speaks to Bulbul Sharma about his acting career, his production house, and his latest film, Paltan, a war drama directed by J.P. Dutta.
Q. You are an alumnus of Delhi University’s Hindu College. So when you are visiting Delhi, are there any memories from you college days that you wish to relive?
A. I was reminiscing about my time in college just yesterday. I was thinking of riding down to the college and visiting the hostel. I was with some people; I just wanted to show them my room. But then better sense prevailed and we came back… I don’t miss college, because some very fond memories are always with me. Memories like walking around the campus, attending festivals, meeting students from other colleges and making friends with them, roaming around Kamla Nagar, watching movies in Chanakyapuri, everyone chipping in to pay the auto fare or running away without paying—it was all so much fun.
Q. Ever since 2006, which was also the year your first commercially successful film,Don, hit the screens, we have seen an Arjun Rampal who is very confident as an actor, who makes informed career choices. What led to this change?
A. As an actor, you want to push the envelope and grow, and not get stuck in one kind of part or role. Though I would love to do another romantic role—as I did in a couple of films before Don—I’d want these roles to be part of more mature love stories. So the change happens when you want to grow, you want to experience different parts, and you want to get lost in those parts. Exploring new roles and genres is always fun.
Q. Is there a film genre, or a type of role that you are most comfortable doing?
A. The part [role] which I am most comfortable with is the one that I will never do again. I know that if I am comfortable with something, I will be bad with it because I will be lazy doing it. So, the idea is to go out of your comfort zone. All the parts that you do, you have to fall in love with them, make a comfort zone within them, own them, explore them and go deep inside them.
Q. Has venturing into production—with your production house, Kundalini Entertainment—transformed you as an actor, as you now have a better understanding of the business part of moviemaking?
A. Yes, it has. It is a very natural transition for an actor, because we have been working with producers and filmmakers so closely. We have been closely observing the whole process of making a movie. And we now want to explore that space for ourselves. We want to narrate a story in our own way, or find a story that is outstanding, and look for an actor who would justify the role better. It is all about telling a story and giving it life.
Q. In your acting career, you have played negative characters in two big commercial hits, Om Shanti Om (2007) andRa.One (2011). Were there any apprehensions before signing these projects?
A. I was petrified to play a negative character because I wasn’t sure if I would be good at it. But then, as I said, you have to get out of your comfort zone. You definitely feel scared, but that’s the challenge an actor throws at himself. And if you can surprise yourself, then you can surprise your audience. That’s what one wants. You want the audience to say that nobody else could have done that part better.
Q. Your latest,Paltan,was a war film with lots of action sequences—something we haven’t seen you doing much of lately. How was your experience shooting for Paltan?
A. Action is based around emotions… Paltan is a war film and has high-octane action. We were firing real guns with real bullets. So, automatically, the way you are positioned, the way you are shooting , your sense of responsibility and alertness, all of it changes because you don’t want to hurt somebody. But J.P. Sir[J.P. Dutta, Paltan’s director] wanted us to do that and he told us, “This is war and I want you all to experience it as closely as possible.” That’s why Paltan was very unique and different from any action film that I have done. The minute you have live ammunition on you, your whole body language changes, and I think it translates well on screen.
Q. You have played the role of an Army man in some of your previous films as well (D-Day and Asambhav). What more did you have to learn or unlearn while preparing for your role in Paltan?
A. That’s the process you go through for any film. If you have done a particular thing for a successful project, people want you to repeat that. And that is something you have to be aware of and move away from, and do something new and different. That’s what I try to do. In this particular film, there is a real story. There is a real war hero, a Mahavir Chakra recipient, Lt. Col. Rai Singh, whom I had to portray. When that happens, the whole level of responsibility changes, because you are representing the Grenadiers [the regiment Lt. Col. Rai Singh was leading], the Army, Singh’s family, the colleagues who knew him… And then, both my grandfathers—my dada jiand my nana ji—were highly decorated Army officers. By playing Lt. Col. Rai Singh, what I gained from my memory was that they were both [Lt. Col. Rai Singh and Rampal’s maternal grandfather] very similar. They had both fought in World War II, they were both part of the Army under the British Raj, and then they had exchange programmes post-Independence in England.
Q. This film is based on a real incident—a military standoff between India and China, in Nathu La in 1967. But are there any bits in it that have been dramatised for a heightened effect?
A. Of course you dramatise things. It is cinema. It is entertainment. You are creating a world and this is something J.P. Sir does beautifully. But the story is absolutely real. There are real soldiers fighting with real guns. The Chinese soldiers were dressed as they would be at that time; our uniforms were also similar to that period. All the references that are there are a hundred percent factual, because when J.P. Sir did his research, he went and met with certain people who had experienced that skirmish in Nathu La. He collected first-hand information from them. There are sequences in the film where the Chinese taunt you in Hindi, and you might think that why a Chinese person would be speaking in Hindi, but it actually did happen. They would put up that whole psychological warfare… Let me tell you an interesting incident. My brother [also an Army man] was serving in Arunachal Pradesh and was positioned at the India-China border. He was the commanding officer of his regiment. So at times, when there was some kind of friction between the two Armies, he and the commanding officer of the Chinese regiment would come and talk to calm things down. And they would sit and have lunch together. They used to talk communicate through interpreters. Once, when they were having lunch, one Indian Army man cracked a very funny joke in Hindi, and all the Chinese soldiers laughed, even without the help of an interpreter… So one might think it is unrealistic, but it is not.
Q. You have been a part of several multi-starrer films. Has the possibility of getting upstaged by your co-actors ever been a concern to you?
A. I am quite secure as an actor. I trust my filmmaker, and in this situation, J.P. Sir. I know that after the script is narrated to me, they [the filmmakers] will do complete justice to it. With this film especially, the minute you wore the uniform and you came out to perform, there was a different kind of a bond with the actors. I understand that when it is a very commercial film with an ensemble cast, you think, “Will I stand out?” But when we were shooting for this film, we shared a great bond.
Q. What would you generally prefer, being a part of an ensemble cast with a great story, or playing the male lead in a film with an average script?
A. I would like to be a part of great cinema.