Anil Kapoor On The Different Men He Has Portrayed On Screen, From 1942: A Love Story To Animal

At the Esquire India cover shoot, Anil Kapoor spoke to Prannay Pathak about the different men he has embodied over the years. There is the familiar swagger of the actor whose screen presence was built on physicality and conviction. There is the unmistakable ease of a star who has spent decades being photographed, and then there is the actor who has, over time, escaped the expectations created by that image.

For Kapoor, masculinity has always been part of the job. There was a time when his characters were defined by anger. He occupied the ‘angst’ space associated with Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha in films such as Tezaab, Rakhwala, Ram Lakhan and, to an extent, Benaam Badsha. The men were volatile, wounded and frequently propelled by some combination of rage and injustice.

Yet, Kapoor’s public image had another foundation: the earnest man fighting something larger than himself.

In Mashaal, he played a journalist who turns against the structures around him. In Meri Jung, he was a lawyer fighting systemic wrongs before the story pushed him towards a more personal vengeance. Mr. India extended that image, while Nayak later returned to the idea of the ordinary citizen being stirred into action.

“It started with Woh Saat Din and Saaheb (1985)," he tells Esquire India. "And then with films like Mr. India and Eeshwar, these characters were all about selflessness and innocence. For me, it was a Chaplinesque influence—the great Charlie Chaplin and, of course, Raj Kapoor saheb."

These characters helped establish something more complicated than the macho image. Kapoor's characters could be angry, but he could also be generous. His men could stand up to the evil in society, and at the same time not lose the innocence that defined them.

Today, however, the men Kapoor plays are often considerably harder to defend.

In Dil Dhadakne Do, he played an egocentric, cavalier patriarch. In Animal, his character’s toxicity becomes part of the destructive inheritance passed down to his son. Jugjugg Jeeyo gave him an adulterous, self-obsessed man. His recent run of films, including Alpha, Fighter, War 2 and Subedaar, continues to place him in the orbit of aggression, authority and complicated masculinity.

So where does Kapoor find these men?

“I’ve seen them in real life. There’s so much of myself, too, to a certain extent. That kind of a streak exists within me, but I have to… to... curb it. I don’t behave like that in real life because I know I’m sensible. I’m educated. That’s not how things are done. But when I’m in front of the camera, I let the streak come to the surface.”

Yet, one of his most famous roles expected him to suppress almost everything audiences expected from Anil Kapoor.

When Vidhu Vinod Chopra brought him 1942: A Love Story, Kapoor initially refused the part. “How could I be so soft, so tender? I am not at all like that in life.”

“I am not at all romantic, man. Some people have that kind of persona—you have Aamir, Rishi saab, Shah Rukh… But then I did it. As a challenge… the character… Narendra.

“I was doing romantic scenes, but they were not the main plot. Rakhwala, Eeshwar (both 1989), Beta (1992)… they all had them but the story was the draw. With 1942, it’s a complete love story. My character is so much in love that it becomes a coming-of-age for him. Everybody around him is trying to be revolutionary—the biggest emotion is the patriotic emotion. But he is so much in love that he can’t see it at first… But he isn’t born like this revolutionary. Everybody comes of age.”

When Kapoor initially started out, his focus was to get a job to support the family. Over time, he reached the point where he could choose to break the mould of the Anil Kapoor character himself. That was how AK vs AK came into being.

What got him sold on it?

"It was so meta," he tells Pathak. "It was something I’ve never done. It was something the Indian audience had rarely seen. Vikram had narrated me films earlier also, but this one struck a chord and I felt I must do it. And I went all out and did it."

“The thing is, when you do these films, you should be very clear who you’re catering to. For AK vs AK, for instance, there is a set of filmmakers who loved it.

The problem with becoming a star is that eventually the audience begins carrying an idea of you into every film.

“They want to see me only as the quintessential hero who beats up f**king so many people and all that," he explains. "Like, [Sandeep Reddy] Vanga was upset when he saw AK vs AK. ‘No, sir, I can’t see you like this’. When I do a film where my role is reactive instead of active, filmmakers like that go, ‘Why? We want you to be active. Aggressively active.

"But then I might have missed out on some great films if I was always looking at such roles. Some fantastic films that I’ve been in, like 1942,” he says.

“You don’t expect a person who’s got such a macho image to do anything but act cruelly towards a girl and all. Not climb on a balcony and be all romantic or get sold off by his wife, which is what happens in Judaai, fronted by Sridevi and Urmila. How dare anybody sell you, Anil Kapoor? You’re not the character—you’re Anil Kapoor.”

This is, perhaps, the advantage of having lived with a star image for so long: Kapoor knows exactly how restrictive it can become. He also knows how satisfying it is to push against it. The audience may continue to see Anil Kapoor before it sees the character. His job, increasingly, seems to be making them look twice.