He impressed as the honest young man caught in the tweezer grip of life in last year’s Cannes double winner Masaan. Today, 28-year-old Vicky Kaushal — who has since garnered praise for his act in the offbeat Zubaan — plays a morally ambiguous cop facing off against Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s real-life serial killer in Raman Raghav 2.0, directed by Anurag Kashyap. t2 caught up with Vicky — Bolly action director Sham Kaushal’s son — on being Raghavan and choosing an unconventional career path. 

It’s quite a transition from a simple man in love in Masaan to a dark and doped cop in Raman Raghav 2.0…  
Well, that’s always been the effort when I choose my films… to make them as diverse as possible. Raman Raghav is hard-hitting and very realistic cinema. People are saying: ‘Anurag Kashyap is back with this one!’ It feels good to have garnered such good response even before the film has released. There are so many people out there who want to watch the film. That’s a great feeling.

When Anurag Sir called me for the audition, he said: ‘There’s this cop and this serial killer, but there are various points in the film in which you won’t know who is who!’ That’s because the serial killer is no doubt a psychopath, but the cop is also equally twisted. The adjectives that he used for this cop were ‘demented’, ‘temperamental’, ‘rebel’… he’s someone who uses a lot of drugs.

I was actually excited just to know that Anurag Sir had even considered me for the part, especially because after films like Masaan and Zubaan, I wasn’t getting any character with diverse shades like this. What I was getting in other films were characters with elements of sincerity and goodness. Anurag Sir locked me for the part just two hours after I had auditioned for it.

When Anurag Sir was making Bombay Velvet, he had actually planned a trilogy set around the same period. So it was supposed to be Bombay Velvet which is set around ’50s-’60s Bombay and then the second part was going to be Raman Raghav set in the ’60s. There were characters in Bombay Velvet —like Kulkarni played by Kay Kay (Menon) Sir — that were going to be taken forward in Raman Raghav. It was during Bombay Velvet — where I was an assistant director — that Anurag Sir told me about Raman Raghav, but after that didn’t work, he wrote a contemporised version of Raman Raghav.

You apparently had sleepless nights and behavioural problems while playing Raghavan. Why was it so tough to switch off? 
It’s the kind of character you don’t enjoy being. He’s really messed up. He has a lot of issues that are really bothering him and that manifests in his actions. He’s shattered from inside, but he puts up a façade all the time. So, as an actor, it’s difficult to believe in the normalcy of a person like that. And when you are shooting 15-16 hours every day for 21 days, it’s a difficult mindspace to be in.

I would shoot all night and come back home at 8am with a shoot call time again at 4pm the same day. But I just couldn’t sleep because all those things I had done at night would come back to haunt me. I was snappy and irritable the whole time and I had given a disclaimer to my family to bear with me during the time I was shooting this film because invariably I would bring back a whole lot of mental baggage every day.  

And did sharing screen space with Nawazuddin Siddiqui add to the baggage?
A lot… a lot (smiles). This is just my third film and to get an opportunity to be directed by Anurag Kashyap and to share screen space with Nawazbhai was special… and scary! I had observed him closely even in Gangs of Wasseypur but in this film, I was sharing scenes and doing dialogues with him and it was a different ballgame altogether. I got to learn a lot of things about him as a person and he also taught me new ways of approaching a scene. He’s an actor who does a lot of homework, but also keeps that element of spontaneity and openness intact. He’s learnt the hard way and his foundation as a guy and an actor is very solid. He’s very quiet and he keeps to his own space between shots. He won’t ever indulge in loose talk. 

Not many can boast of standing ovations at Cannes for the second time in 12 months. Was it less overwhelming this time or were you just as wide-eyed as the first time?
(Smiles) It’s always overwhelming. It’s special to see cinema from across the globe in one venue. It’s such a huge celebration of cinema. And like it happened with Masaan last year, even for Raman Raghav we got a standing ovation at Cannes. It was surreal, to say the least. 

You’ve charted a very different career path, taking on scripts and not projects. Has it been tougher and, therefore, more fulfilling?
I am very blessed to have had a journey like this. I am someone who doesn’t think lekin, kintu parantu... because I believe that this is a very unpredictable profession. Anything can happen anytime. I didn’t choose this path, this path chose me. All the three films I have done till now have been through auditioning… it feels good to have earned these films on my own merit. It’s taken a while… some six-seven years… from being an assistant director to doing theatre and giving many, many, many auditions (smiles), getting shortlisted for many of them and then getting rejected. I feel good about where I am right now because every step has been a learning experience. 

So what’s your pep talk for those like you who face rejection every day? 
The most important thing is to step out of your house every day. One should never get into the mindset ki mehnat kar rahein hain aur kuch nahin ho raha… so let’s just give up. Just keep at it… have a positive frame of mind. There have been times when I have come back home at night after multiple rejections, but I have woken up the next morning, packed my bags and gone to yet another audition. As an actor, that one window of opportunity that you wait years for is actually one phone call away. It’s your duty to be at the right place at that time. And no experience — be it rejection or a positive response — is a waste for an actor… it just adds to your bank of emotions to tap into when you finally do that role.

VICKY KAUSHAL SHOULD BE YOUR NEXT #CRUSH BECAUSE...

He’s a thinking man’s actor. None of the usual song-’n’- dance for him. He’s been an assistant director and understands the technicalities of filmmaking well. Plus, he always has his degree in electronics and telecommunications engineering to fall back on. 

 

Priyanka Roy