Abhay Deol On His Love For Films

Brut India

Watch Abhay Deol reveal how Anurag Kashyap showed him how to perfect the drunkard walk from Emotional Atyachar and when his love for films started.  Thanks for the footage, INKtalks!

Transcript

00:00I would question myself, you know, like, do I really want to act?

00:08Have you always wanted to be an actor? Is that something you always thought or did it come

00:15kind of accidentally? Tell us a little bit about how you started being an actor.

00:20Well, yeah, I grew up in a family of filmmakers and so we were always surrounded by that.

00:26I remember going to the sets at the age of five and six and so I was very intrigued.

00:31I almost felt it was my right to be an actor because my family was, you know, in the business.

00:36So I used to take part in theater and school as well all the time and it was the only thing I

00:41felt I was ever good at. But soon after, when I turned 10 or 11, as I started to discover,

00:47you know, cinema from around the world and then I would see the cinema back at home,

00:51I would question myself, you know, like, do I really want to act?

00:55And also because everybody said, who'd come home, family and friends,

01:01and I was like, no, don't take me for granted. You know, I could be… I could be a doctor,

01:04I could be a scientist. So I denied it for a long time. But then around 19, when I was in college

01:10and I had to, you know, confirm my major, I was like, okay, just face it. This is what you want

01:15to do. You know, and I went for it. Yeah. And when you started doing the films,

01:21you know, obviously, they might have said, hero banega, but you actually play the, you know,

01:27non-hero, hero roles a lot. And it seemed like there was a point where you arrived at that,

01:33saying, this is really what I want to do. So tell us a little bit about where was the

01:38inspiration for that? What was the first movie where you felt, this is the kind of movies I want

01:42to do? It started off in childhood, you know, I… one of my earliest memories is of watching Star

01:48Wars. You know, you're an eight-year-old boy and it's just like, wow, what is this? You know,

01:54there's no songs and the action is so much better. And then as I grew older, I started to discover

02:01more filmmakers. I mean, funnily enough, at an early age, I discovered Stanley Kubrick,

02:05you know, The Shining. As a child, I loved getting… being spooked out of

02:11and The Shining did that. And then from there, I went on to discover, I remember, Terry Gilliam,

02:17Brazil, I think it was Terry Gilliam. So, it started off at that point and my journey just

02:23took off. And then when I went to college in LA, it just opened up even more. And even more,

02:28I realized that I want to act. And even more, I felt depressed when I looked at

02:33what was being made at home. Which was the first movie where you felt at home with

02:39that genre of movies? One that I saw that… when I was old enough to realize what I was liking was

02:46Blade Runner. And Sochanatha, my first one, was at least content-driven. But yeah, I think Manorama

02:52was the first one that I could get out of my skin, get into a comfort zone that was… it wasn't my

02:58comfort zone. So, you know, this is a question you're asked often about how you prepare for a

03:02role, especially when you look at something like a Dev D, where you're taking drugs, you're getting

03:08drunk and, you know, how far does method acting go? Well, I've done my share of experimenting

03:14with drugs and whatnot in college. You're on tape. Yeah, I know. I've said this anyways and

03:19I've done what I've done now. There's nothing I can do about it. I think I drank maybe thrice

03:24in three occasions on set because I just wanted to get a feel of acting while drunk. You can't

03:30really get drunk and act because you're going to be working for eight, nine, ten hours.

03:34I remember asking Anurag once for the walk. And people love that walk in that song from

03:41where Paro gets married, Emosh Lathichar. And I just remember this moment of asking Anurag,

03:45well, just walk like a drunkard and show me. And he did it bang on. It was brilliant. So,

03:50you can take tips. You can ask your director, can you show me? Not all directors can.

03:55But I know that Anurag and Divakar are good actors. So, you know, you can see how they interpret it.

04:00And then it's not a matter of copying them. It's a matter of finding your approach to it.

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