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Has he been typecast by the colour of his skin? ?No, certainly not. Those who say so have never bothered to see my films. I have played so many non-English roles? I have been a Punjabi villain in Junoon, one of the longest-running serials on TV,? goes the baritone, after a few seconds of silence.
Thirty years of being an actor and 225 films later, nothing annoys Tom Alter more than a query on his colour. For, few know how the 50-something with aquamarine eyes ? more familiar to most as the kingpin of smuggling rackets in films of the Eighties ? grew up in Mussourie speaking chaste Urdu, straddles the English and Hindi stage with equal ease, and is a cricket buff.
?I thoroughly enjoyed playing the coach of the Indian cricket team in The Dressing Room, though the film didn?t do well,? says Alter, couched in a city hotel last week -- eyes glued to the TV, catching every moment of the India-Australia Chennai Test ? hours before taking the stage at GD Birla Sabhagar.
Cyrus Dastur?s wacky take on spirituality ?and Now She Says She?s God!!! Found Alter playing the male god to a packed auditorium on the last lap of the McDowell?s Signature Theatre Fest.
?The Calcutta audience is responsive, even if they don?t come up to you to say so in the greenroom. And I would love to bring my two-and-half-hour solo Urdu piece Maulana Azad to this city. I have been performing it in Mumbai for the past three years,? says Alter, who had breezed through town last month to shoot for Chirasakha Hey, directed by Bandana Mukhopadhyay.
?The film is about Rabindranath Tagore?s relationship with his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi. I play an Anglo-Indian doctor who investigates Kadambari?s death and is a key figure as he challenges the death that had been passed off as suicide. I think the film will generate some amount of controversy,? he smiles.
But before that, Alter has a few more releases lined up ? starting with Ketan Mehta?s The Rising where he plays ?one of the English officers? and a few small-budget films very close to his heart. ?But I doubt whether these films will at all be released any day. It is strange that most actors in Bollywood have around 30 to 40 films which have never been released,? he reveals.
The other titles in the pipeline include a Hindi-English venture Art of Dying, Angshuman Rawat?s Hangman co-starring Om Puri, plus a Marathi film.
Enough variety there to shut up critics with a coloured view.