Anupam Kher says industry considered poor actors heroes: 'It was torturous'

Anupam Kher

Never one to disappoint with his film choices, Anupam Kher gripped the attention of cinephiles when he announced that he was set to play a 69-year-old man with aspirations of competing in a triathlon. Kher, also 69, says that like his character Vijay, he also believes that there is benefit in "attempting things that are considered difficult".

"I am the actor who likes to break stereotypes. I want to push boundaries and do things that people say are not possible. People try their best to ensure that one remains mediocre, because [that's how they] see [themselves]. Who decides if you can do something or not?" he enthuses with the passion he showcases on screen. "I didn't know how to swim, but this film required my character to do so. I could have easily told the team to work with a body double for those sections. But the film is about courage, and if the actor did not showcase that, it would be a contradiction. I didn't want that," he says.

Featuring in Akshay Roy's directorial venture, Kher says, has left him yearning for similar challenges. As physically taxing as it may seem, Kher says he'd like to feature in a film like Vijay 69 "every two years". "When you have done so much work, you have to make your job difficult."

Place power in the hands of bankable actors like him, and it's easy to see that a film will have several takers. In fact, Kher's vast body of work is testimony to the fact that films based on aged characters have found favour among the masses. We are compelled to ask the actor why similar stories that revolve around elderly protagonists are not brought into the market. Kher opines that the masses are "conditioned to believe" that the kind of success that the protagonist of the film enjoys is reserved for the young. "We believe in clichés. We like success stories. But Vijay 69 is also a success story. Our society tends to look at older characters from a sympathetic lens. In Vijay 69, my character is ready for a fight anytime. There's no age barrier in his head. He is quite unabashed in his approach. And that's such an attractive quality about him," he shares.

Having worked for nearly four decades, Kher has been part of a diverse filmography. However, it was early on in his journey that he learnt a crucial aspect about the disparity between acting and popularity. "I always considered myself the hero of a film. I had told Subhash Ghai [director] that my character in Karma [1986], Doctor Dang, is the hero. Had Dilip Kumar or Amitabh Bachchan played that role, they would have been considered the heroes. But, when Anupam Kher plays it, that's not how it is referred to. An actor who has knowledge will know that anyone who acts well is a hero. I understood this because I was an educated actor. In our industry, those who acted poorly were called heroes and the ones who acted well were considered character actors. It was torturous, sometimes. I used to look at a hero and think, ‘He is such a bad actor.'"