Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor, who plays a dull 75-year-old in 102 Not Out, when compared to his sprightly centenarian father, claims his latest film with Amitabh Bachchan isn’t just a comedy.
“I have a different kind of relationship and vibe with my father [Bachchan] in this film. You cannot slot this film into something you have seen before … 102 Not Out is a family film, an emotional one,” said Kapoor in an interview with Gulf News tabloid!.
Directed by Umesh Shukla, who is known for his satirical comedy OMG: Oh My God, the upcoming film is a tale of a 102-year-old father who wants to break the record of being the oldest man alive. The vibrant senior is even ready to send his cranky son to an old-age home to accomplish his goal. It’s a situation of a comical kind.
While it remains to be seen if Bachchan’s character, Dattatraya Vakharia, can attain his landmark of being the oldest man on earth, this film has already accomplished a casting coup of sorts.
After a gap of 27 years, audiences will see Bachchan and Kapoor reuniting on the big screen. Their last cinematic outing was in 1991 with Ajooba. However, it wasn’t their on-screen union that convinced Kapoor to be part of this project. For Kapoor, who is known for his brusque off-screen personality, it was all about the script.
“I should love the story, the character and this film gave me something new to do. The fringe benefit was that I was working with Mr Bachchan after a lapse of 27 years. We have worked in five films and this is our sixth endeavour,” said Kapoor.
While it’s delightful to watch them share the screen, they belong to distinct schools of acting.
“I try to be as spontaneous as I can get. I would like to do it in natural terms. I am not a method actor and there’s no method to my craft,” said Kapoor.
Director Shukla found the two acting styles a revelatory experience. Bachchan and Kapoor embarked on a five–day workshop to gear up for their film and spent more than three hours doing their make-up every day. While Kapoor is balding and rotund in the film, Bachchan sports a wispy silver wig and beard.
“Bachchan sir does a lot of homework. He wants to know where the comma and the full stop is in the script. And once he’s in the front of the camera, he’s in total control. While Rishi Kapoor sir is more spontaneous … But it’s their greatness that they made me feel comfortable,” said Shukla, adding that the veteran actors never imposed their will on him.
“They understood that the film is a director’s medium and I just felt very privileged,” Shukla added.
According to the director, Bachchan agreed to take on the role of centenarian after hearing the gist of his film and the spirit behind it.
“The film is about living life to the fullest. Even at 25 you can live your life like an old person, or even at 75 you can live your life as if you are 20-something. That curiosity to know about life should always be there,” he said.
102 Not Out also destroys the usual tropes of father-son relationships in Hindi films, claims Shukla.
“The relationship of a father and son belonging to this age bracket has never been explored … Usually, the son is in their 30s and the father in his 60s. Here that’s not the case. Every family has a father-son chemistry that’s unique to them and it’s the comical situations that arise from it,” said Shukla.
Bachchan and Kapoor belong to a Gujarati household, a community that’s often caricatured in Hindi films with exaggerated accents.
“That’s not happening in this film. The idea is not to make them speak comically … The idea is to make 102 Not Out in the most comical manner.”
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AMITABH BACHCHAN ON HIS PERSONAL LANDMARKS
Just before a film gears up for release in Bollywood, it’s routine to ask the stars about their roles and the challenges they faced during the project.
But when you have an opportunity to e-mail Amitabh Bachchan, it feels criminal to waste it on routine questions. So Gulf News tabloid! decided to go off the beaten path.
As Bachchan’s latest comedy 102 Not Out opens in the UAE cinemas on May 3, we asked the actor to jot down memories on his real-life landmarks. His role in his new film is also of an ageing man on a quest to attain the landmark of world’s oldest man — a distinction held by a 105-year-old Chinese man in the movie. (Fun fact: In the real world, the record is held by 112-year-old Japanese man Masazo Nonaka.)
While Bachchan kept his responses clipped, there’s no denying that his life is peppered generously with his own set of iconic moments.
Here are his thoughts …
When he saw himself on the big screen in Saat Hindustani, his first film in 1969:
“I thought what a mess I was, and how I would never be accepted as an actor.”
When he won the National Award for the Best Newcomer:
“A most pleasant surprise.”
When he heard the script for Sholay:
“I thought it was a great script, but never ever thought what it would turn out to be eventually [a cult classic].”
When his son, Abhishek, announced his decision to become an actor like you:
“I welcomed the idea.”
When he was labelled as the angry young man of Bollywood:
“A complete misnomer, undeserving and worthy of such designation.”
When 102 Not Out propelled him to examine the issues of mortality and transient nature of life:
“It’s not the film [that propels you to examine those issues]. You come to know of it pretty early in your life, as do all of us.”
His thoughts on August 2, when he got a second lease of life after a near-fatal accident on the set of the 1983 film Coolie:
“God is great and so are the prayers and wishes of the millions that prayed for me and my survival.”
When he read his daughter Shweta’s writing:
“I have a smile of great pride.”
On acting alongside Rishi Kapoor after 27 years and the biggest takeaway from that experience:
“It’s not like we were separated at birth and were meeting after 27 years… It was just like getting off a bicycle and getting on it again, you never forget to ride the bicycle or like how you never forget how to swim. It was a delight then, it was delight even now.”
When he lived his life to the fullest in his own life, keeping in mind the theme of 102 Not Out:
“It hasn’t arrived yet.”
When he decided to quit being a bachelor and tie the knot:
“I thought it was time. Time to tell the lady I was seeing that we should marry!”
When he played a part in the critically-acclaimed Pink, one of the strongest Hindi films about women empowerment and consent:
“A belief in its theme, a belief in whatever I spoke as a dialogue, a belief that I honour and am troubled by.”
When he became a grandfather:
“I have had three of them so far and on each occasion I took the newborn to my father and mother to seek their blessings and to introduce them to our ‘progress report’.”
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Don’t miss it!
102 Not Out releases in the UAE on May 3.
