Siddhanth Kapoor plays Dawood Ibrahim in Apoorva Lakhia’s Haseena Parkar, releasing on September 22. The gangster flick chronicles the life of Dawood’s sister Haseena — played by Siddhanth’s real-life sister Shraddha —  from teenage to the time she turns 40. t2 met Shakti Kapoor’s son to talk about his relationship with younger sister Shraddha and why he is excited to shoot J.P. Dutta’s war film Paltan.

Did Haseena Parkar come to you first or was Shraddha signed first?

It came to me two-and-a-half or three years ago. I was probably the first person to be cast in the film. And later on she came on board, which was an amazing thing. So yeah...it all just worked out.

What was your first reaction when Apoorva Lakhia asked you to play Dawood?

I didn’t believe it because I never saw myself playing Dawood Ibrahim. But then I took it up as a challenge. I don’t like doing things that are normal. And I think it worked out.

What kind of research did this demand of you?

I did a lot of workshops to help me get into his psyche and understand his character. I read a lot of books, including Dongri to Dubai. Author (S.) Hussain Zaidi helped me get an insight into Dawood’s life.

The audience has seen other actors play Dawood in the past. Did that play on your mind?

Of course. Lots of brilliant legends have played him like Rishi Sir (Kapoor, in D-Day), Ajay Devgn (in Company) and Sonu Sood (in Shootout at Wadala). But they’ve all played him when he’s 35 or 40 years old. In Haseena, we first see Dawood as an 18-year-old. No one’s ever played him at that age. So we had the freedom to show him in a different way. But when it came to the older portions, we had to use silicon, prosthetics and lens. I wanted to keep his body language different from what I’ve seen other actors do before.

What is your sense of the relationship between Dawood and Haseena?

I guess a brother-sister relationship — no matter what they do in life, gangsters, being poets, being doctors, being actors — is a brother and sister relationship. They did, of course, have to deal with crime and it got really intense for them with their family. That’s what we’ve tried to show in the film... from her point of view what happens to him, to her escape, to her husband. And the film is 90-95 per cent true. It’s how it happened.

This is the first time you’ve worked with a family member on screen. What was it like to have Shraddha as a co-star?

Outstanding! Both of us dreamt of becoming actors and to get an opportunity to work together like this was amazing. Our relationship is obviously very different from the one in the film. We had to keep switching on and off from real life brother-sister to reel brother-sister.

What kind of a relationship do the two of you share?

We are like any brother-sister. We’re involved in each other’s lives when we want the other one to be involved. We don’t poke around in each other’s lives. We share a very close bond and have probably never fought. I was very protective of her, always watchful, always making sure she did the right thing. Even though she is younger to me, she loves behaving like my elder sister.

You are going to be a part of J.P. Dutta’s Paltan next?

Yes, I’m playing one of the main characters. It’s my first out-and-out positive character. All the roles I’ve done so far have been black, or at least grey. It would be interesting to play a nice guy for a change. Paltan is based on the Indo-China war and it has an amazing cast. J.P. Sir is coming back after a long time. I’m really looking forward to shooting in Leh-Ladakh for this.

Karishma Upadhyay