Somewhere in the beginning of the second episode of the final season of the American series 24, Anil Kapoor tells a reporter over the phone, "I just hope no one could see how nervous I was." Kapoor plays Omar Hassan, president of the fictional Islamic Republic of Kamistan, and in that particular scene is shown to have just finished addressing a joint press conference with the American president on US soil.
Six years on, Kapoor claims he is actually "nervous". This time, about how people here will react to the second season of the Indian adaptation of 24. The show, which premiered this Saturday (July 23) on Colors channel, is about the life and challenges of anti-terrorist unit agent Jai Singh Rathod. Kapoor plays the lead in the series and is also the producer of the show.
The original 24 by Fox Network Television ran for eight successful seasons, winning numerous awards, including an Emmy, making Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer an iconic television character. Rathod is Bauer in the Indian milieu, and in the second season he will be seen racing against time to prevent a terror attack in Mumbai. Episodes of 24 will be aired every weekend (Saturday and Sunday) for the next three-and-a-half months.
At a time when Indian TV is dominated by tales of snakes and witches and pataali devis, does a show like this one stand a chance?
Snakes don't scare Kapoor; he has been up against them before. "I have always gone with my instinct. I remember when Mr India was released, Nagina was running to packed houses. But Mr India did manage to find its own following. I feel the same way about 24," he says, "Let the growth be slow, let the fan base increase slowly. Even in the original format it was only by the fourth season that it actually captured Middle America."
The American show came to Kapoor following the success of Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning 2008 movie Slumdog Millionaire. Kapoor says he signed up for the role of Hassan, because he liked it, but assumed it would last only a few episodes. "But I carried on till the 16th episode, which is when my character dies." The show perhaps got him the cameo (as a lecherous Indian businessman) in Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment of the movie franchise.
Kapoor is on a roll. In May, Family Guy, an American animated sitcom for adults, aired its first episode set in India (season finale) with Kapoor as one of the voiceover artists. Very soon he will adapt Modern Family and Prison Break for the domestic audience. His production house Anil Kapoor Film Company under his daughter Rhea will produce both the shows.
But would an American sitcom like Modern Family that highlights same-sex relationships and multiple marriages work in the Indian context? "It is the ideal time for a show like this here. I will keep the essence intact."
He has other plans for the Indian television industry, but wouldn't reveal his cards just yet. "An international studio has approached my production house and we have pitched an original idea to them. Hopefully it should work out. And whatever I do now will be for the world market," he says, choosing his words with care. Kapoor is also in talks with Phantom Films, the Anurag Kashyap-owned film production and distribution company that has signed up with Netflix for Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games. "I asked them to not to make it [Sacred Games] just for the Indian market, but for a global audience. It should be like India's answer to Narcos (the American crime Web series telecast in Spanish language). Why not make a show in Hindi and let it be watched all over the world," he asks.
This is indeed a different man, a far cry from the Kapoor who acted in an expensive box office disaster by the name of Roop Ki Rani, Choron Ka Raja in 1993. "That is not going to happen again," he says. This Kapoor knows what he wants and goes for it. "Earlier, I could do only one film a year, or two, and that would make me happy. And then do films that made my brother happy or helped run the kitchen. Now I do everything that makes me happy, my family happy, and runs the kitchen as well. I am finding more like-minded people and I am getting paid well for it," he grins.
Kapoor's next big screen release will be Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Fanney Khan, the Hindi remake of the Oscar-nominated Dutch film Everybody's Famous, where he essays the character of a musician. Then there is Anees Bazmee's Mubaraka in which he will play uncle to his nephew Arjun Kapoor. So will there be more fatherly roles like Dil Dhadakne Do?
"At my age, I am not disillusioned enough to think I can play a college student or do action sequences like Tiger Shroff. My endeavour is that a few years later, journalists should stop asking me how I feel about playing a younger actor's father and instead ask those actors how they feel about me playing their father," says the lean 59-year-old, flashing his trademark cheeky smile.
Trust Kapoor to turn an old question on its head.
