Indian Star Character Actor Nawazuddin Saddiqui
by Alex Deleon-Sinha
Actor Nawazuddin Saddiqui relaxing with a cigarette at the festival hotel in Stuttgart.
Known popularly as "Nawaz", Saddiqui is that unusual screen phenomenon a star character actor', and he is currently the most sought after screen actor in India.
This was his second visit to the Stuttgart Festival where this year he appears in two films, "Bombay Talkies" and "Talaash". His breakout role was last year in Anurag Kahyap's "Gangs of Wasseypur"' part 2, where he played a vicious psychotic pot-smoking gangster who coldly cuts off the head of a buddy suspected of treachery ... a character he somehow invested with a degree of sympathy! This was followed up with the political thriller "Kahaani" in which Saddiqui portrayed a hard-boiled no-nonsense government investigator, also borderline psychotic, opposite a magnificent Vidya Balan, firmly establishing his credentials as the go-to guy for important unsavory characters of this category. However, in person Saddiqui turns out to be a modest soft-spoken gentleman who regards screen acting as a challenging craft, not as a vehicle to stardom and celebrity.
His roles in the two Stuttgart films were in sharp contrast to the above mentioned power performances that made him an overnight celluloid sensation ...
In the four part film "Bombay Talkies" which was premiered at Cannes to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema, in part 2, "Star" Siddiqui plays a feckless unemployed father of a young daughter who thinks he is a hopeless loser no matter how hard he tries to amuse her with various kinds of imitations. By accident he wanders onto a real Bollywood street shot and is selected by real director Farah Khan from the crowd to do a walk on where he will merely bump into real Bollywood star, Ranbir Kapoor. He demands to have some dialogue and is given the single word "hey" upon which he capitalizes enough to regain the respect of his daughter. What Saddiqui does with this minimal material is a small wonder to watch while demonstrating a completely different side of this versatile artist's acting palette.
This role is also somewhat of a comment on the 39 year old actor's own career which languished unrecognized in minor roles for many years until his amazing talent came to the fore in Gangs of Wasseypur and a sudden cascade of other films last year.
Another film show at Stuttgart which showed his versatility was the enigmatic murder mystery "Taalish" (The Search, or "The Answer Lies Within") , which is an all-star vehicle in which he plays a sleazy underworld bribe artist with an ungainly limp. In spite of the lameness he leads the police a merry chase across corrugated rooftops of the Bombay market before he falls to his death and makes every scene he is in memorable although this is a subplot in the picture.
The Suttgart audience wondered how he could play a cripple so convincingly to which Nawaz stated matter-of-factly that it was all part of an actor's job which involved some observation of the movements of real cripples to get it right.
And that is basically the story of this actor -- he gets everything right, and then some -- no matter what part he is called on to do.
As for the sudden fame and recognition that has come his way -- seemingly overnight, even though he's been around the Hindi film industry for well over a decade and was noticed earlier by more savvy directors -- it's more of a surprise to him than anyone else.
Until recently he was never asked to sign autographs and had to learn the proper approach. Says Siddiqui, whimsically, "at first I just signed my name but then I noticed that all the stars would add a comment to their signature to make their fans happy -- So I started doing the same thing -- but I did have to learn how to play the autograph game!"
A typical comment by this unassuming diminutive (5 foot 6) artiste.
Strikingly handsome in a non six-pack muscular heroic leading man way Siddiqui reveals that he would like to do some romantic roles eventually, but realistically, with a certain subtlety and development -- not following the standard Bollywood pattern where hero meets heroine and -- whammo -- within three seconds they're madly in love dancing wildly away, In the endlessly brutal 'Gangs of Wasseypur' Siddiqui actually does woo an attractive maiden in a subtlety understated way, which is one of the things that makes him somewhat sympathetic although we known he's basically a psychopathic killer -- but one with a soft streak. At the end of that bloodbath he actually breaks down into tears at the murderous clan madness around him.
It is this kind of versatility coupled with electric screen charisma that has made Nawaz Siddiqui a force to be reckoned with in the rapidly evolving new Bollywood landscape where a sizzling character actor can attract fans even to films that are not loaded down with the usual gossip column megastars. And that is a major change in itself.
Upcoming Siddiqui films Include the noirish "Monsoon Shootout" and the family film "Dabba" (The Lunchbox) both of which were introduced at Cannes and will soon be on commercial release.
