'Vijay Mathew Parallels My Life Story': Anupam Kher on His New Release Vijay 69 on Netflix

Anupam Kher, 65 & 542 films strong, retains youthful zest, mirroring his Vijay 69 character. Seema Sinha catches up with the veteran actor.

Actor Anupam Kher doesn’t believe in slowing down. Forty years after he started his acting career with Mahesh Bhatt's Saaransh in which he played the role of a 65-year-old retired school teacher when he was merely 28 years of age, Kher plays what is now his real age! “I was 28 then, starting out. And people did not know me. But they all thought that I was a real old man. And similarly, if you watch Vijay 69 and can’t see Anupam Kher, it will be an achievement. Just that I’m using the energy of a 28-year-old to play 69-year-old Vijay Mathew,” says the actor.

With Vijay 69 streaming from today, Yash Raj Films has its second OTT release (after Junaid Khan’s Maharaj) for Netflix once again, Vijay 69 featuring Kher in the titular role of a foul-mouthed former swimming coach who enrols for the Triathlon (an athletic contest consisting of swimming, cycling and long-distance running). Produced by Maneesh Sharma and Aditya Chopra, the film is written and directed by Akshay Roy (who directed Meri Pyaari Bindu, 2017) and also features Chunky Pandey and Mihir Ahuja.

Calling it as one of the finest roles written for a 68-year-old, playing Vijay had a parallel with his own personal life, says Kher, who is a trained drama school actor and a gold medallist at that. “In the sense that I have been in movies for 40 years and I still want to keep learning, keep dreaming. But people try to crush your dreams, they put you in a slot as per their own convenience so that they feel comfortable about it. They start calling you a veteran, a legend, a thespian, they give you a Lifetime Achievement award and then you walk into the sunset. I want to request people that don’t even think of giving me a Lifetime Achievement award. Last year one of the leading magazines called me very excitedly and told me that they wanted to give me this award, they felt they were doing me a huge favour but I told them to call me after 20 years,” Kher says laughing heartily.

He furthers, “And this exactly is the life of the lead character in Vijay 69. One day Vijay Mathew makes a report card of his life and feels he hasn’t done anything in life which can be called an achievement although I feel raising a family, getting children educated, getting them settled, getting them married is the biggest accomplishment of our middle-class families but that is not considered to be an achievement in a normal life. My character feels my only achievement is that I am my building society’s secretary, I can dance a bit and return all my loans but he wants to be remembered for something after he is dead and gone. Then he decides to explore what 60 plus men have achieved in life so far and discovers one has reached the space, somebody has lifted massive weight, somebody has become a father at 60 plus and finally he decides be the oldest man to participate in a Triathlon which nobody in his family, and rightly so, wants him to do because it is an audacious dream. My character Vijay is trying to break the mould of cliches like Anupam is trying to do in his real life.”

Another defining role was, of course, Saaransh (1984) itself and Kher recalls the negative feedback he got after he signed his debut film. “Though I considered myself to be the luckiest actor then to get this role people told me that I will be typecast. A.K. Hangal-saab was one of our finest actors on stage and screen, but still slotted on screen as an old man, and they said, ‘Aap Hangla jaaoge!’, meaning that I will be forever categorised in that mould. But years before that, I had realized that God has made us all unique, but we become ordinary or mediocre because circumstances compel us to compromise. And that is why I thought that I must have the courage to do the film. Even now, I know I am remembered as B.V. Pradhan from that film,” says the actor.

Kher feels that age is just a number and gives examples of his parents. “My mother is 86, and has a rod in her leg, but she refuses help when ascending a flight of stairs. She does not grumble as she says, ‘I will age if I grumble!’ She is my biggest inspiration. Government retires us from our jobs and our families retire us from our life. I feel one should never tell our old parents that I will do this for you or I will bring this for you. If they don’t walk, talk ..we make them feel old all the time,” he says.

Though the actor has not done much preparation for his role he did decide to learn swimming despite suffering from water phobia. “When I was offered this film, I didn’t know swimming at all and I learnt the sport at the age of 68. The production team said we will manage with the help of VFX or special effects but I felt I needed to justify. I wanted to prove myself though I have water phobia,” says the actor who shares an anecdote during his struggling days.

He narrates an anecdote losing a role to Amrish Puri for not knowing how to swim. “When I came to Mumbai to become an actor, director Tanveer Ahmed who had seen my play Desire Under the Elms approached me for the role of the main villain in his film. He asked me if I knew swimming. I lied to him fearing that he may not cast me if I told him the truth. I told him I was a swimming champion."

With four months left for shoot, the actor was confident that he would learn swimming and went to a trainer at a hotel in Juhu. "On the first day of my training he pushed me in the deep pool that left me shaken. I was terrified. I came out of the pool and slapped the trainer and after that incident I developed severe water phobia. After a few days when I went for the shoot at Hotel Sea Rock pool in Mumbai the first scene given to me was coming out of a deep pool at high speed with some women around me. Eventually, I had to confess to Tanveer that I didn’t know swimming and asked him if this scene can be shot on the shallow side of the pool. He kicked me out of the film and replaced me with Amrish Puri," Kher narrates.

Kher has donned many hats in his four-decade film journey – in the main lead, or as a character actor, or as a villain, or even as a comedian, is there still a role or a genre that he urges to do and the actor points out that it is different emotions that he has brought out in the characters he has played has been most interesting and challenging for him. “We have different ways of expressing emotions. I have played father in several films -- in Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahi, in Tezaab, in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and also in Khosla Ka Ghosla and they are all four different people. I am a trained actor from a drama school and now at this point of time I want to take up roles that are still more difficult and demanding,” he says.

Kher, as a young boy, who self-confessedly was neither good in studies or sports had big dreams. “I had dreamt in a small town in Shimla that I wanted to do something big in my life. I wanted an identity. Now I can say that all dreams do come true, you just have to work hard, be honest and optimistic. There is no definite age to learn and similarly there is no age to dream. Dreams keep changing. Don’t be stingy in dreaming. It is a never-ending road as they say -- A bend in the road is not the end of the road. There are a lot of things to achieve. Hence, when I read the script of Vijay 69, I felt it is a parallel story of my life, I have never wanted to be just another actor. If given an opportunity like this, I can’t miss it. You have to try and outdo yourself. I am now doing my 542nd film, but if you want me to list my five best among them all, I will include this one,” signs off Kher.

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