Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a Goan customs officer running after smugglers in his latest outing Costao that dropped last Friday on Zee5. The consummate actor, who will turn 51 within a fortnight, talks about being inspired by Satyajit Ray to sticking to one’s roots in pursuit of excellence that the world takes note of.
Today is Satyajit Ray’s birth anniversary (the interview took place on May 2). In 2022, you called him the ‘Mozart of film-making’. Your thoughts?
Oh my god! I have seen so much of his work. Let me share an experience. I had once visited the Warner Brothers studio in Los Angeles. The big directors there were speaking only about Satyajit Ray. Hamarey desh ko unhone jo diye hai hum uss ka ehsaan kabhi nahin chuka sakte, itni badi saksiyat hai. Whatever work he has done — painting, short stories, cinema — whatever he touched was out of the world. Woh ek genius kism ke aadmi the.
In that post, you had mentioned that Ray “made the local go global”. Is that your career plan as well or do you have ambitions of working in the West?
Satyajit Ray stayed put in Calcutta and held up his work for the world to notice, such was his personality. My ambition is that we produce work of a level that is seen around the world. I also like doing films that are peopled by sights and sounds around us, that tell our own stories.
In this globalised world, perhaps the language or even the location has ceased to be a limiting factor, right? You can make a film in whatever language; if it is good the world will watch.
It is already watching. Payel Kapadia’s picture All We Imagine as Light — see where it has gone (won Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival in 2024)! Another instance in recent times is The Lunchbox. It is the independent films that will make the country proud. Otherwise, the mainstream films that are made are watched only by people at home and by Indians and Pakistanis abroad. But it is films of the kind made by Ray saab or Anurag Kashyap or Payal Kapadia that are watched in the US or Europe.
You play an investigating officer in both Rautu ka Raaz, that released last year, and now in Costao. In Rautu.., your character was as laidback as was the hill station where the story was set. This is fast-paced and action-oriented.
In Rautu.., I played a police officer; here I am with customs. An incident happens and how it impacts his life, his family and how he fights back are what this film is about. The fight is more internal — his own guilt, the effects on him of the court proceedings, his relationship with his daughter….
When and where was this shot?
We shot last year in Bombay and Goa, mostly in Goa. It was a two-month schedule.
How would you describe Costao Fernandez as a person?
A man with a conscience. You will see his bravery and honesty and how he is fighting the system and powerful people, despite suffering himself and seeing his family suffer. The climax scene is in a graveyard, which shows how conscientious he is. It is an emotional story of his bravery.
You have danced in a music video for the track Yanta (by Renuka Panwar and Raja), which is pretty unusual coming from you. Did you want to have fun?
Yes. And an actor should be able to do all kinds of things. I am most scared of dancing as I am not a dancer. But I also like to challenge myself as an actor.
If directors pick up the idea from this and include dance numbers in your films, will you welcome that?
I will do it as an experiment. An actor should be able to take on challenges. If a film required me to dance, I would train for it, even if it took me a year.
Which film do you remember as one where you had to work hard to acquire a skill?
For Costao, I had to learn boxing and pick up a runner’s stance. For every film, I will learn whatever it takes. Even for the fight sequence, I had rehearsed for four-five days.
Your film I Am Not an Actor, which premiered in California this March, is said to have been shot simultaneously in Frankfurt and Mumbai. The title is quite intriguing as is the approach.
It is a proper film but on acting. We have just put in a scene. It has gone to a few festivals. Let’s see when we can release it here.
You also co-produced it (through his company Side Hero Entertainment). Is that the way forward for actors wanting to do roles of their choice?
I am trying to support such content-driven films of modest budget, especially for festivals. It is important that our cinema reaches international platforms. Seven or eight films of mine have gone to Cannes. Anurag Kashyap, Ritesh Batra (writer-director of The Lunchbox) and Payel Kapadia have cracked it. We need to reach the outside world with local films on simple and meaningful subjects.
But you do not want to follow in Irrfan Khan’s track — go to the West and act in their projects, right?
Nahin, nahin, main wahan toh nahin jaunga. Main Ray saab se inspired hoon. Apne ghar mein reh ke unko yahan bulanyenge.
What else is coming from you this year?
I do one film at a time. Three films are in post-production. There will be the second part of Raat Akeli Hai. There will also be Faraar and Section 108. I am also doing a series called Haasan MD which is on a doctor. It will be my second (Hindi) series after Sacred Games. It is light drama with a combination of emotions.