 "Vicky Kaushal")
In 2009, as a young graduate in electronics and telecommunications, Vicky Kaushal couldn’t even have imagined that he would become a household name six years hence with his nuanced act in Masaan (2015).
At around the same time, his future co-star in Masaan, Shweta Tripathi, too had began testing waters in the entertainment industry. She quit her job with the leading women’s magazine, Femina, to start her own theatre group, All My Tea Productions, while auditioning for commercials, TV series and films. She landed the role of a tomboy, Zenia Khan, in the Disney original series, Kya Mast Hai Life, and also appeared in popular commercials for Tata Sky and Vodafone.
In another part of Mumbai, Tahir Raj Bhasin, a young model from Delhi who moved to the city at the age of 23, was pursuing his passion for acting. Already with his fundamentals in place [he trained at Barry John’s acting school], Bhasin took up a year-long course to study body language and behavioral analytics, which reflected in his breakthrough performance as a human trafficking kingpin in Mardaani (2014).
While the trio were taking tentative steps into the film world, Sayani Gupta was pursuing a degree in acting from the Film and Television Institute of India, or FTII, to understand the world of cinema better. In 2015, she would be lauded as the the quiet scene stealer in Margarita With A Straw (2015) for her portrayal of Khanum, a Pakistani-Bangladeshi lesbian.
The months between 2014 and 2015 transformed the lives of these four young actors, with powerful acts in their full-length film debuts heralding them into the big league. Today they are working with big banners such as Yash Raj Films and Phantom Films, while also exploring the experimental spaces of web series and online short films.
Though it’s taken a good eight to nine years for this talented new brigade to get started on this journey to stardom, they feel it’s been worth the wait. “My experience at Femina taught me a lot about what happens behind the scenes and how actors handle themselves,” says Tripathi, who followed up her class act in Masaan with a short film in Yash Raj Films’ anthology, Love Shots, and Haraamkhor, in which she played the lead opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Her sensitive portrayal of Sandhya, a teenage student in a relationship with her teacher, won her the best actress award at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), which she shared with Kalki Koechlin, who won it for Margarita With A Straw.
Kaushal, the only one from the lot who comes from a film background -- his father, Sham Kaushal, is an action director and stunt coordinator -- was enamoured by how a script, which is a few sheets of paper, is immortalised on celluloid. To get a deeper understanding of the process, he became the assistant director on Gangs of Wasseypur. “That was my acting school. It gave me insight into the minds of actors such as Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Manoj Bajpayee and Piyush Mishra. It suggested the next logical step to me -- theatre --, which made me aware of my own instincts,” he says.
In the years between anonymity and stardom, he took up minor roles in films such as Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, while also pursuing theatre with Manav Kaul and Naseeruddin Shah.
The intelligence with which this new brigade of actors is approaching roles, mediums and formats has left critics impressed. For instance, Bhasin, instead of opting for the vanilla route of essaying a chocolate hero, chose to debut as a negative lead and held his own against a seasoned performer like Rani Mukerji. “He is an extremely intelligent actor. He gives more than you can ask for. After watching Mardaani, people came out of the theatre full of him. He made them feel ki yeh tho hamaare bacche ko utha lega. He had the effect that Pran had long time ago. And then suddenly you saw a completely different side to him in a short film, part of the Love Shots anthology, earlier this year, where he emits an effortless casual cool vibe,” says Ashish Patil, vice president, Yash Raj Films. The urban love story, with an unexpected ending, softened the image of Bhasin in the audience’s mind, while also acting as a reminder that he was very much around, post his debut in 2014. He will now be seen doing high-octane action in the upcoming Force 2, where he is pitted against John Abraham.
Actors like Bhasin shatter the common “bimbo-like” stereotype associated with Bollywood stars. “We were on an interesting panel discussion at the book launch of India Reloaded, where Bollywood was represented by Bhasin. People were taken aback by his intelligent take on the choices he makes as a young Indian actor and consumer,” says Patil.
The hunger within these new-age actors is to be in front of the camera, be it for a 10-minute scene or a full-fledged lead. If the role is meaty enough, then the length doesn’t matter. “Just being in front of the camera makes me happy, be it for two scenes or 10 lines,” says Tripathi, a thought that is shared by Kaushal and Bhasin as well. “The scale or size doesn’t matter. In Love Shots, the ending changed the entire meaning of the film and that attracted me. I look for a story that needs to be told by a director who can tell it meaningfully. And that’s where Force 2 by Abhinay Deo ticks all the boxes,” he says.
For Kaushal, every new role -- be it in Zubaan or Raman Raghav 2.0 -- is an exploration of a different shade of his acting style. “It tells me that main yeh kar sakta hoon, yeh bhi ho sakta hai.”
Neeraj Ghaywan, who directed Tripathi and Kaushal in Masaan, feels that the duo are driven by strong characters and surrender to the vision of the director and writer. “The portion of role doesn’t matter. If they feel that the journey of the character needs to be shown, they will take it up. And that’s how it should be -- your identity as an actor, director, writer becomes subservient to the ultimate goal of the film,” says Ghaywan. He didn’t give them the easy way out. “In one scene, Kaushal's character screams at Tripathi. I didn't let her use glycerine to cry, but created ways in which she could truly feel the emotions,” says Ghaywan. He initially had inhibitions about casting Kaushal in the film. “But the way he gelled with the character, I can’t even imagine Masaan without him.”
Yet another young actor, Rasika Dugal, who has been making an impact with the play Vagina Monologues and will be seen in Nandita Das’s Manto, was advised to not look for smaller parts when she graduated from FTII. “But I said I need to meet people to understand and explore the world of Indian cinema,” says Dugal, who has acted in films such as Qissa and Agyaat and also in TV series, Powder and Kismat by Yash Raj Films .
What also sets these actors apart is their unconventional looks and style. This has worked to Gupta’s advantage as she bagged meaty roles in films such as Fan and Baar Baar Dekho. “Best thing is that actors like Shweta and me aren’t obsessed with looks, even while being in an industry which is obsessed with them. Our background in theatre keeps us rooted to the craft. We use the external to help our craft,” she says. Gupta’s look in Fan was diametrically different to the ones in Margarita and the short film Parched. “Again in Jagga Jasoos, I am playing a 14-year-old girl. I often joke that I will never get famous. I look so different in every film that I walk into a room or a party and no one recognises me,” she laughs. She is using this to her benefit by skirting the danger of being typecast and by essaying diverse roles.
One of the big factors that has led to new actors getting opportunities based on their talent alone can be attributed to the change within the casting industry. “Films today look different because people like Mukesh Chhabra and Honey Trehan go around the country to screen different people. They build characters and cast accordingly,” says film critic and writer Mayank Shekhar. “One good way of making films different is to cast someone never seen before or cast the same people but in a way not seen earlier.” Kaushal concurs: “The old formula that let’s back someone who has done 50 films vis-a-vis someone who has done 10 no longer works.”
With experimental and alternative spaces opening up, it couldn’t have been a more exciting time for new actors to enter the industry, and they are making the most of it. “There are newer avenues to explore while also auditioning for big projects. You can be busy showcasing your talent on those mediums too,” says Shekhar. Instead of waiting for meaty roles, Tripathi has tied up with a writer to create content herself and is pitching concepts for full-length features and a web series to producers. She is also essaying the role of a drug addict in a film shot on the iPhone by Shlok Sharma, director of Haraamkhor. “Earlier you had to wait for a film to come to you. Now you can shoot your own thing. If it’s of good quality and connects with people, it will go viral,” she says. Meanwhile, Dugal is busy with a web series, tentatively titled Humorously Yours, by TVF. “Content on the web is on a lighter note. It has great potential for a good comedy, which unfortunately doesn’t come your way as a female actor,” she says. The shooting for Manto will begin in November, and till then she hopes to do a short film Agli Baar by Devashish Makhija and also start work on the TV series adapted from the Israeli show, Prisoners of War, which the American series Homeland is based on.
