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'I Must Have Done 100 Auditions. I Got Rejected Every Time'
Kaminey may be his arrival. Shahid Kapoor talks to MANJULA NARAYAN about his long journey there
SHAHID KAPOOR'S apartment is the typical den of a manchild. All deep brown and beige with faux antique ceiling fans, ornate pendent lamps and aged railway sleeper wood accents that are the rage with interior decorators with large budgets. Still, the 14th floor flat in Mumbai's Versova looks like it could do with a woman's touch. Not that the place is a mess. Far from it. The unused wooden ashtray, the gold inlaid glass bowl and the matching candles are all placed just so. Though Bollywood's newest superstar shares his home with Kaiser, a large golden retriever with gentle eyes, no dog hair clings to the cushion covers, and though a practised housekeeper's eye could perhaps detect an imperceptible film of dust under the sofa, the place is largely spotless. But there is a certain missing je ne sais quoi. Perhaps Kapoor's Man Friday, a burly mustached Cadbury figure, had pushed everything into the next room minutes earlier. A peek into it reveals piles of files and papers and clothes tossed onto trunks. The couch in the living room corner facing a gigantic LCD screen is the one space that seems well used. In short, the place has 'bachelor pad' written all over it, and though no gaming paraphernalia is visible, you could bet there was a Playstation console complete with attendant thingamajigs in the bedroom.
Kaiser plays the host and makes muted doggy conversation, occasionally insisting that his head be stroked until Kapoor himself strides into the room. After days of phone tag with various publicists who speak of him in hushed tones, you expect a version of muscle bound Charlie in Kaminey, but dressed in a studiedly casual shirt thrown over jeans, his hair fashionably mussed and his feet shod in strappy leather sandals. In person, 28-year-old Shahid looks more like his character in Jab We Met. His eyes are earnest, his lower teeth endearingly crooked, and he exudes a quiet self-assurance.'I ALWAYS KNEW NO ONE WAS GOING TO SAY, 'NOW, BETA, I'M GOING TO MAKE A 25-CRORE FILM FOR YOU!' SAYS SHAHID
On cue, Man Friday also affectionately addressed as "Maamu" brings in two mugs of coffee. Shahid balks at the mugs, which he pronounces not nearly good enough to be brought out in company. "These are the worst cups ever seen, you know. I hate them, but I'm this bachelor so I have no time to…" he trails off. The white china mugs with the thin red lines below the rim seem all right but clearly, Shahid is a control freak even when it comes to his coffee mugs.
It's probably that quality, and a whole load of luck by chance, that has got him thus far in the Hindi film industry where fame is difficult to come by unless your family is well entrenched in the business. Shahid Kapoor's family is famously not well entrenched in Bollywood. His mother Neelima Azim, she of the sparkly eyes who audiences still remember as Shehnaz from the 1980s Doordarshan serial Phir Wohi Talash, married actor Pankaj Kapur when she was 22. But Kapur left Delhi soon after to seek his dreams in Mumbai and the long distance relationship floundered.
Door of perception
Shahid Kapoor in a scene from Kaminey
Life would have been difficult for Neelima and her son. But her father, Urdu journalist, writer and wellknown leftist Anwar Azeem formed a protective cocoon around them.
"My father was the youngest of the Progressive Writers Group. They used to call him 'Fire Azeem' and he was the greatest orator I've heard. Shahid has got a lot of his diction and facility from him," says Neelima who reveals that until the age of 10 when he moved to live with her in Mumbai, Shahid was extremely close to his grandfather. Shahid speaks fondly of his early childhood at Press Enclave in Saket where he played eight hour cricket games, sneaked licks of the forbidden orange ice cream that invariably left him with rashes and a bad throat, hung out with his many cousins and was spoilt rotten by his grandparents.
The shift to Mumbai was a wrench. "All the boys at the school had been together since Junior KG so I was a total outsider. There were times when the whole class would complain against me and I would be made to sit near the dustbin. I was a major outcaste," Shahid laughs. Growing up in a single parent home couldn't have been easy — Azeem says Pankaj Kapur was an entirely absent father — and perhaps Shahid's composure and drive has grown out of the experience of that early loss of moorings.
By the time he got to Mithibhai College, though, he had jettisoned the pronounced northern accent that riled his schoolmates and overcome his awkwardness. "College was great because I was really popular. I used to think I was a dude," he says, lapsing effortlessly into a parody of the 'yo' persona of his younger self. "I'd wear tight tshirts and cargo pants, carry my Discman, always have Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up on repeat and walk into the canteen. And because, by now, I was already an instructor with Shiamak Davar's dance troupe people used to think I was cool," he says, revealing that his dancing, a talent he inherited from his mother who was one of kathak exponent Birju Maharaj's favourite pupils, helped him become financially independent at 16.
Then came the first of a series of serendipitous breaks. He gave a friend and an aspiring model a ride to a video test and was coaxed by a random assistant director to audition too. After holding up a plastic glass and saying "I want more" in five different ways, he found himself in a Pepsi ad alongside Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukherjee.
The road ahead
Shahid with director Vishal Bharadwaj on the sets of Kaminey
I WAS SHOOTING with these three huge superstars and I was this dumbhead who had no clue. For those two days I was zoned out," says Shahid. He is on his second cup of coffee sweetened with, what else, Sugar-Free. A man has to have some vices.
Soon his boyish charm was harnessed to sell a range of products. Then, at the ripe age of 19 he began contemplating a career as a Hindi film hero. "But I always knew no one was going to say 'Now, beta, I'm going to make a 25- crore film for you'," he says. Then, there were big battles with self doubt. "I kept asking myself, 'Do I want to become an actor just because my father and my mother are actors or do I want to become one because that's what I'm good at?" he says. You glimpse such a ruminating, pondering, mental shadow boxing side to him that it's a wonder he didn't drop out at the first lap.'I REMEMBER WONDERING, 'MERA KUCHH HOGA KYA?' THERE ARE NO FIXED MILESTONES. IT'S A WEIRD SPACE TO BE IN,' SAYS SHAHID
He launched into a period of intense self-study. He opted out of the dance troupe, stopped doing ads and began assisting his father with serials like Mohandas BA LLB and Drishant, attending "Naseer uncle's" acting workshops and immersing himself in world cinema. It was also a year of constant auditioning.
"I must have done 100 odd auditions and I got rejected every time," he says.
It was a tortuous phase. "I remember standing outside my building at 1.30 am and wondering 'Shit, mera kuchh hoga kya?' This isn't like a profession where you get a degree and then get a job. There are no fixed milestones. The easiest way of being eligible is to be a star son, which doesn't apply to 99 percent of the people who've come here. It's a weird space," he says. Sensing the unease triggered by the memories, Kaiser, who's settled at Shahid's feet whimpers. "You're taking me through all this and he's having a nightmare because he's really connected to me," Shahid murmurs bending down to comfort the animal.
Fortunately for him, his dreams didn't implode. He met director Ken Ghosh who was looking for a young lead for his first film Ishk Vishk. Ghosh initially rejected Shahid as he thought he was too young and 'skinny'.
"When someone criticises me, I take it damn seriously. I decided then that since he thought I didn't have a body, I was gonna make one," he says. He 'made' that body, landed the lead role and the rest, as the clich goes, is history.
"The night before the release, I went out for a drive with a friend and saw some guys putting up the posters. I asked them if I could help. They said, 'Arre, yeh toh hero hai picture ka.' I stuck a poster on the wall with them then," he says, remembering also the thrill of seeing his first houseful board at Mumbai's Liberty Cinema the next day.
"Me, Amrita and Ken were all standing outside the theatre. We were desperate. The people who were going in gave us very mild reactions. I remember standing at the door and watching the film. That's when I realised what stardom is. There was a stampede. I was the same guy these people had said 'hello' to two hours ago and in that time, their perception of me had changed!" he laughs.
Indeed, the only time that easy laugh dies on his lips is when he's quizzed on his views on religion. "That's something I don't want to talk about at all," he says abruptly and no amount of blather on spirituality can draw him out. It's the most extraordinary shutdown. You do the mental math and figure out that he was probably 12 when Mumbai went up in flames in the post Babri riots, that the periodic spells of madness that plunge this nation into despair must be particularly difficult for someone whose identity is truly syncretic, a merging of streams, and wholly Indian, and have to be content to leave it at that.
Cut to mother Neelima Azim's home a few streets away: "Even as a child, Shahid had a spiritual bent, a strong quest involving the cosmos and God himself. He was interested in reading books like the Bible and the Koran," she says as her 14-year-old younger son Ishaan, another lively chip off the maternal block, flits in and out of the room.
BUT BACK to Shahid. Post the religion question, the air has grown chillier and it's a real effort to stick a finger into what must definitely be one of Kapoor's deeper wounds – the messy end to his l'affair de coeur with Kareena Kapoor.
"My breakup was hugely public. I dealt with it by focusing on my work. My family was really supportive too. Beyond that, I had to tell myself, 'Dude, you're an actor and this is the price you pay!'" he says. No words of rancour escape him and it occurs to you that Shahid would probably commit hara kiri before he did a petulant Viveik Oberoi act.
But now that he has fielded questions he absolutely doesn't like, you figure throwing yet another one at him won't matter. Besides, you're now possessed by a need to break through his protective carapace, that unbreachable wall he's built suddenly around himself.
Where does he see himself in 10 years time?
"I'd like to have a spacious house with a view of the sea, a gym inside and a mini theatre… And, yeah, a wife and two kids too," he says.
Then, as though he's suddenly recoiling at the thought of tempting fate he says, "Man, you're taking me into a world I don't want to be in. I'm happy being 28. Let me savour this bachelor space. I know it won't last but maybe I don't want that reality check," he says as he walks you out.
As the door shuts behind you, you're thinking that contrary to all his protestations, he really, really wants someone to replace those coffee mugs for him.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=hub290809i_must.asp
Kaminey may be his arrival. Shahid Kapoor talks to MANJULA NARAYAN about his long journey there
Shahid with his mother Neelima Azim
SHAHID KAPOOR'S apartment is the typical den of a manchild. All deep brown and beige with faux antique ceiling fans, ornate pendent lamps and aged railway sleeper wood accents that are the rage with interior decorators with large budgets. Still, the 14th floor flat in Mumbai's Versova looks like it could do with a woman's touch. Not that the place is a mess. Far from it. The unused wooden ashtray, the gold inlaid glass bowl and the matching candles are all placed just so. Though Bollywood's newest superstar shares his home with Kaiser, a large golden retriever with gentle eyes, no dog hair clings to the cushion covers, and though a practised housekeeper's eye could perhaps detect an imperceptible film of dust under the sofa, the place is largely spotless. But there is a certain missing je ne sais quoi. Perhaps Kapoor's Man Friday, a burly mustached Cadbury figure, had pushed everything into the next room minutes earlier. A peek into it reveals piles of files and papers and clothes tossed onto trunks. The couch in the living room corner facing a gigantic LCD screen is the one space that seems well used. In short, the place has 'bachelor pad' written all over it, and though no gaming paraphernalia is visible, you could bet there was a Playstation console complete with attendant thingamajigs in the bedroom.
Kaiser plays the host and makes muted doggy conversation, occasionally insisting that his head be stroked until Kapoor himself strides into the room. After days of phone tag with various publicists who speak of him in hushed tones, you expect a version of muscle bound Charlie in Kaminey, but dressed in a studiedly casual shirt thrown over jeans, his hair fashionably mussed and his feet shod in strappy leather sandals. In person, 28-year-old Shahid looks more like his character in Jab We Met. His eyes are earnest, his lower teeth endearingly crooked, and he exudes a quiet self-assurance.'I ALWAYS KNEW NO ONE WAS GOING TO SAY, 'NOW, BETA, I'M GOING TO MAKE A 25-CRORE FILM FOR YOU!' SAYS SHAHID
On cue, Man Friday also affectionately addressed as "Maamu" brings in two mugs of coffee. Shahid balks at the mugs, which he pronounces not nearly good enough to be brought out in company. "These are the worst cups ever seen, you know. I hate them, but I'm this bachelor so I have no time to…" he trails off. The white china mugs with the thin red lines below the rim seem all right but clearly, Shahid is a control freak even when it comes to his coffee mugs.
It's probably that quality, and a whole load of luck by chance, that has got him thus far in the Hindi film industry where fame is difficult to come by unless your family is well entrenched in the business. Shahid Kapoor's family is famously not well entrenched in Bollywood. His mother Neelima Azim, she of the sparkly eyes who audiences still remember as Shehnaz from the 1980s Doordarshan serial Phir Wohi Talash, married actor Pankaj Kapur when she was 22. But Kapur left Delhi soon after to seek his dreams in Mumbai and the long distance relationship floundered.
Door of perception
Shahid Kapoor in a scene from Kaminey
Life would have been difficult for Neelima and her son. But her father, Urdu journalist, writer and wellknown leftist Anwar Azeem formed a protective cocoon around them.
"My father was the youngest of the Progressive Writers Group. They used to call him 'Fire Azeem' and he was the greatest orator I've heard. Shahid has got a lot of his diction and facility from him," says Neelima who reveals that until the age of 10 when he moved to live with her in Mumbai, Shahid was extremely close to his grandfather. Shahid speaks fondly of his early childhood at Press Enclave in Saket where he played eight hour cricket games, sneaked licks of the forbidden orange ice cream that invariably left him with rashes and a bad throat, hung out with his many cousins and was spoilt rotten by his grandparents.
The shift to Mumbai was a wrench. "All the boys at the school had been together since Junior KG so I was a total outsider. There were times when the whole class would complain against me and I would be made to sit near the dustbin. I was a major outcaste," Shahid laughs. Growing up in a single parent home couldn't have been easy — Azeem says Pankaj Kapur was an entirely absent father — and perhaps Shahid's composure and drive has grown out of the experience of that early loss of moorings.
By the time he got to Mithibhai College, though, he had jettisoned the pronounced northern accent that riled his schoolmates and overcome his awkwardness. "College was great because I was really popular. I used to think I was a dude," he says, lapsing effortlessly into a parody of the 'yo' persona of his younger self. "I'd wear tight tshirts and cargo pants, carry my Discman, always have Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up on repeat and walk into the canteen. And because, by now, I was already an instructor with Shiamak Davar's dance troupe people used to think I was cool," he says, revealing that his dancing, a talent he inherited from his mother who was one of kathak exponent Birju Maharaj's favourite pupils, helped him become financially independent at 16.
Then came the first of a series of serendipitous breaks. He gave a friend and an aspiring model a ride to a video test and was coaxed by a random assistant director to audition too. After holding up a plastic glass and saying "I want more" in five different ways, he found himself in a Pepsi ad alongside Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukherjee.
The road ahead
Shahid with director Vishal Bharadwaj on the sets of Kaminey
I WAS SHOOTING with these three huge superstars and I was this dumbhead who had no clue. For those two days I was zoned out," says Shahid. He is on his second cup of coffee sweetened with, what else, Sugar-Free. A man has to have some vices.
Soon his boyish charm was harnessed to sell a range of products. Then, at the ripe age of 19 he began contemplating a career as a Hindi film hero. "But I always knew no one was going to say 'Now, beta, I'm going to make a 25- crore film for you'," he says. Then, there were big battles with self doubt. "I kept asking myself, 'Do I want to become an actor just because my father and my mother are actors or do I want to become one because that's what I'm good at?" he says. You glimpse such a ruminating, pondering, mental shadow boxing side to him that it's a wonder he didn't drop out at the first lap.'I REMEMBER WONDERING, 'MERA KUCHH HOGA KYA?' THERE ARE NO FIXED MILESTONES. IT'S A WEIRD SPACE TO BE IN,' SAYS SHAHID
He launched into a period of intense self-study. He opted out of the dance troupe, stopped doing ads and began assisting his father with serials like Mohandas BA LLB and Drishant, attending "Naseer uncle's" acting workshops and immersing himself in world cinema. It was also a year of constant auditioning.
"I must have done 100 odd auditions and I got rejected every time," he says.
It was a tortuous phase. "I remember standing outside my building at 1.30 am and wondering 'Shit, mera kuchh hoga kya?' This isn't like a profession where you get a degree and then get a job. There are no fixed milestones. The easiest way of being eligible is to be a star son, which doesn't apply to 99 percent of the people who've come here. It's a weird space," he says. Sensing the unease triggered by the memories, Kaiser, who's settled at Shahid's feet whimpers. "You're taking me through all this and he's having a nightmare because he's really connected to me," Shahid murmurs bending down to comfort the animal.
Fortunately for him, his dreams didn't implode. He met director Ken Ghosh who was looking for a young lead for his first film Ishk Vishk. Ghosh initially rejected Shahid as he thought he was too young and 'skinny'.
"When someone criticises me, I take it damn seriously. I decided then that since he thought I didn't have a body, I was gonna make one," he says. He 'made' that body, landed the lead role and the rest, as the clich goes, is history.
"The night before the release, I went out for a drive with a friend and saw some guys putting up the posters. I asked them if I could help. They said, 'Arre, yeh toh hero hai picture ka.' I stuck a poster on the wall with them then," he says, remembering also the thrill of seeing his first houseful board at Mumbai's Liberty Cinema the next day.
"Me, Amrita and Ken were all standing outside the theatre. We were desperate. The people who were going in gave us very mild reactions. I remember standing at the door and watching the film. That's when I realised what stardom is. There was a stampede. I was the same guy these people had said 'hello' to two hours ago and in that time, their perception of me had changed!" he laughs.
Indeed, the only time that easy laugh dies on his lips is when he's quizzed on his views on religion. "That's something I don't want to talk about at all," he says abruptly and no amount of blather on spirituality can draw him out. It's the most extraordinary shutdown. You do the mental math and figure out that he was probably 12 when Mumbai went up in flames in the post Babri riots, that the periodic spells of madness that plunge this nation into despair must be particularly difficult for someone whose identity is truly syncretic, a merging of streams, and wholly Indian, and have to be content to leave it at that.
Cut to mother Neelima Azim's home a few streets away: "Even as a child, Shahid had a spiritual bent, a strong quest involving the cosmos and God himself. He was interested in reading books like the Bible and the Koran," she says as her 14-year-old younger son Ishaan, another lively chip off the maternal block, flits in and out of the room.
BUT BACK to Shahid. Post the religion question, the air has grown chillier and it's a real effort to stick a finger into what must definitely be one of Kapoor's deeper wounds – the messy end to his l'affair de coeur with Kareena Kapoor.
"My breakup was hugely public. I dealt with it by focusing on my work. My family was really supportive too. Beyond that, I had to tell myself, 'Dude, you're an actor and this is the price you pay!'" he says. No words of rancour escape him and it occurs to you that Shahid would probably commit hara kiri before he did a petulant Viveik Oberoi act.
But now that he has fielded questions he absolutely doesn't like, you figure throwing yet another one at him won't matter. Besides, you're now possessed by a need to break through his protective carapace, that unbreachable wall he's built suddenly around himself.
Where does he see himself in 10 years time?
"I'd like to have a spacious house with a view of the sea, a gym inside and a mini theatre… And, yeah, a wife and two kids too," he says.
Then, as though he's suddenly recoiling at the thought of tempting fate he says, "Man, you're taking me into a world I don't want to be in. I'm happy being 28. Let me savour this bachelor space. I know it won't last but maybe I don't want that reality check," he says as he walks you out.
As the door shuts behind you, you're thinking that contrary to all his protestations, he really, really wants someone to replace those coffee mugs for him.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=hub290809i_must.asp
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