The soft spoken 38 year old National School of Drama alumni Chinmay Mandlekar who does not attend awards function like Aamir Khan tells JYOTHI VENKATESH that the length of a role in a film does not matter but the weight does.
What is your role in Halaal?
I play the role of a Maulana in a village who is very respectable and straight forward, who believes a lot in the teaching of the religion. The Maulana is confronted by an emotional problem in his life. How the Maulana is able to grapple with it forms the crux of the subject of the film.
Is Halal based on a celebrated novel?
Yes. It is based on a novel on triple talaq written by Rajan Khan and mine is a well written pivotal role. I’d say that undoubtedly it is one of the best roles of mine in recent times. When I was approached by the national award winning director Shivaji Lotan Patil Sir who has directed the film with the role, it did not take me even a single minute to say yes because I was not at all in two minds.
How easy was it for you to get into the skin of the role?
The best thing about the character was that I had to see to it that I did not cross the edge but with Shivaji Sir to guide me properly, I could do some challenging scenes effortlessly which have made the film what it has turned out to be.
You mean to say that it was not at all tough for you to play the role?
It was tough but not impossible because I have played the role of Muslim characters a lot of time in films as well as TV shows. Though I did not attend any workshops before I started shooting for the film, I went through some workshops right on the sets on location to exactly know how one drank water and Sivaji Sir also gave me a lot of inputs which tremendously helped me to enact my role.
Did the gut wrenching role drain you completely as an actor?
I would not say that the role per se drained me as an actor but the temperature of 45 degrees did at Malegaon where we shot the film. I would say that the film was a sort of eye opener for me. Sivaji Sir’s style of the technique of shooting was very real. I shot for 12 days for the film in an 8/10 kholi.
Priyadarshan Jadhav’s role was bigger than that of yours. How did you let a comparatively new actor play a bigger role than you in a film?
It is true that Darshan as I call Priyadarshan Jadhav has a bigger role but it is not about ego but what the role is that goads me to accept a film. Length does not matter but the weight of a role matters a lot to me as an actor. Both my roles in Sameer earlier and Halal now were not big in terms of length but carried a lot of weight and I enjoy such kind of work a lot.
What next, after Halal?
I am working in films like Maska, an out and out comedy film directed by Darshan, who does not act in the film, which also has actors like Aniket Viswasrao and Prarthana Behere besides me, a historical film like Farzaand directed by Digpal Lanjekar , which also has Prasad Oak and Sameer Dharmadhikari besides me but I cannot divulge details about my role and last but not the least Vikramaditya Motwane’s Bhavesh Joshi in which Harshvardhan Kapoor plays the lead and I play a cop. A lot of Marathi actors like Suhas Palshikar and Nishikant Kamat also play key roles in the film.
What do you feel when you look back at your career?
I made my debut with Sanai Chaugade way back in 2008. I have been part of 25 Marathi films in a period of eight years which is not a bad average. I have acted in Tere Bin Laden and Sameer in Hindi and now I am awaiting the release of Bhavesh Joshi. I have always believed in destiny and know that whatever is ordained for me will come to me sooner or later. Though I do not attend award functions or attend parties, I know for a fact that I know acting. I want to act with good directors who are ready to give me good roles. As I am also a writer myself, I know also what is needed from an actor. Though I may not fit into the image of the typical hero or color my hair, I think that being an actor is more important than being a star.
