A Tribute to Character Actors

Their journey from becoming a character to living the character

Friendly Suggestion: Today’s post is very specifically about the Hindi film industry. Those not familiar with it may choose to not read any further.

---

A friend of mine had suggested to me a few months ago that character actors in movies could make for an interesting topic for a post. He had made this suggestion after my post on Deewaar. I had not given much thought to the suggestion, for two reasons: 1) I didn’t want to follow up one movie-based post with another, and 2) There just wasn’t any immediate trigger that could have got me thinking about the suggestion.

So, what made me consider his suggestion now? The answer is: Laapata Ladies.

It’s a film that has an ensemble cast of brilliant character actors, and I am including the Bhojpuri films superstar Ravi Kishan also in the list of character actors. (Review in the Keep Watching section of this post.) Laapata Ladies is a further affirmation of what I had written in one of my earlier posts on returning to the slow and simple ways of life. And just while I was forming the structure of today’s post in my mind, I chanced upon Freddy Birdy’s post on Insta today. Talk of serendipity!

So, what exactly is a character actor? As Sam Kench says in his blog, “The term has the potential to be confusing for two reasons. First: there are conflicting definitions for ‘character actor.’ Second: all actors are technically playing characters whenever they appear on screen, so it would be natural to assume that all actors are character actors.” Character actors are alternatively also known as Supporting Actors. I prefer the term Character Actor over Supporting Actor. Supporting Actor is impersonal. It is clinical. Character Actor has more nuance to it. More character. It also allows for compartmentalisation into two distinct boxes – one in which they become a character, the other in which they live the character. Allow me to explain …

One kind of character actor is the one who is playing a certain character that is defined by certain mannerisms, quirks, etc which make them stand out from the rest of the cast and become memorable. The downside for those who fall in this category is that they run the risk of getting typecast throughout their entire career. The Hindi film industry of the 60’s to the 80’s is littered with enough and more examples of actors who played only one character in film after film. Jagdish Raj (upright Police Inspector). A.K. Hangal (helpless elder of a family/neighbourhood). Rajendranath (buffoon). Lalita Pawar (scheming aunt/granny/neighbour/M-I-L). Manorama (caricaturish aunt). Nirupa Roy (sobbing mother). Iftekhar (Police Commissioner). Keshto Mukherjee (drunkard - due credit to him that he played a drunkard his entire reel life while being a teetotaller in real life). Mac Mohan (main villain’s sidekick). And there are many, many more. Then, of course, there are those who essayed the roles of villains or comedians, and sometimes interchangeably. (An aside: How many of you would agree with my observation that villains make for good comedians, and vice versa?)

This was the era of formula films, and true to their description everything fit into predetermined formulae like a song every couple of reels, a fight sequence every couple of reels, comic relief in every reel, high emotion moments in the last couple of reels, a fight sequence or emotionally intense climax in the last reel. All the actors, stars included, became caricatures.

The travesty of the life of this type of a character actor from the ‘70s is best depicted in a recent movie called Kaamyaab. Brilliantly performed by the multi-talented Sanjay Mishra, it is a story of the life of a has-been character actor who struggles to not only make ends meet, but also to come to terms with a changed world. In his quest to act in his 500^th film, he goes through one embarrassing situation after another. The movie is replete with several nuances that made up the lives of character actors that Gen X readers of my posts will relate to. In a superb review of the movie, Priyanka Sinha Jha writes, “A telling moment in the film is when Sudhir, attending his grandchild’s school function is asked to fill in because the Chief Guest —a big star—has been delayed. Sudhir steps in reluctantly and just when he has the audience completely under his spell with his gimmicks, the superstar walks in and the crowds once again turn to the Star they are fascinated with. That scene succinctly captured the hardships of a life of quasi-fame, a reality that character actors often live with. Fortuitously, the evolution of cinema at large and Hindi movies in particular has given character actors a commanding presence of their own. The shift away from formula films has made specificity necessary for casting people.”

The other kind of character actors are those who have a chameleon like ability to fit into any role that is given to them. Yesteryear thespians like Balraj Sahani, Utpal Dutt, Om Prakash, Satyen Kappu, Om Shivpuri, Yunus Parvez, Farida Jalal, Aruna Irani, right upto recent year ones like Dalip Tahil, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Jimmy Shergill, Pawan Malhotra, Reema Lagoo, etc are known for their wide ranging acting chops – be it as cool parents, strict parents, siblings, friends, uncles, aunts, villains, doctors, accountants, comedians, industrialists, and a whole host of professions that they could easily slip into. The roles essayed by this type of character actors are very often a reflection of society and societal mores. They are the perfect foil to the role played by the lead star. When the role is well etched, scripted and of course performed, the character actors have the power to become more memorable than even the lead actor’s role.

Being a character actor may not come with the glamour associated with films and film stars. But they are undoubtedly the backbone of every movie they grace their presence with. Kench writes,

“A good way to tell if someone might be a character actor is if you recognize them from a bunch of films without knowing their name … The best character actors often find themselves in smaller roles that are more demanding and complicated than lead roles all the same … The best character actors take on challenging parts and give them life, while bolstering the performances of the leading actors.”

Case in point being a cursory analysis of the films that Mr. Bachchan has become so well known for shows that each of them had hugely talented supporting actors who provided a force multiplier effect to Mr. Bachchan’s talent. The superstar himself has gone on record several times to acknowledge the massive contribution of the character actors in his films. He has said that while he was fortunate enough to work with some of the best actors and used to look forward to sharing the screen with them, he used to be internally petrified as it meant that he had to at least measure up to the quality and depth of performance his supporting actors would bring to the mix, let alone think of outshining them.

In a predominantly star led system of film making, one of the most overlooked facts is that being a star eventually becomes a burden as the image that’s built around the star becomes like an albatross round their neck. Often times it results in the stars’ performances becoming jaded and occasionally grating. While character actors, completely unencumbered of these limitations, are less likely to succumb to this pitfall.

The beauty of being known as a character actor is that there is no sell-by date attached to them. Since they excel in becoming the character they play, for them age, weight, looks, and other such superficialities associated with stars don’t come in their way. In today’s day and age where choices are being exercised in every vocation, character actors are never at the mercy of any system. They can literally pick and choose their plums. They can choose to take time out. They can choose to slide into any project when they feel like. From an audience perspective, there is always an unprejudiced welcome accorded to them since the audience sees them for the character they play on screen and not what they are known for in their real life.

The only blight in a character actor’s career happens when they aim to occupy centre stage, and are occasionally granted one as well. That is where the dissonance in the minds of the audience happens. Their image of being character actors doesn’t measure up to the larger than life persona that the audience looks for in a star. But even that is changing of late.

The honour of being the pioneer of making a globally acknowledged film without a single star could probably go to Shekhar Kapur for the Bandit Queen. Which was then followed by the likes of maverick directors like Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap with trailblazing movies like Satya and Gangs Of Wasseypur. Not to forget Vishal Bharadwaj with his Shakespeare inspired trilogy. Between these six films the Hindi film industry has made the likes of Manoj Bajpayee, Seema Bissau, Shefali Chhaya, Saurabh Mishra, Sanjay Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Yashpal Sharma, Richa Chadha, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi, Irrfan Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Piyush Mishra, and many others household names. These films and a few others by Shimit Amin, Shakun Batra, Dibakar Banerjee, Neeraj Pandey, Kanu Behl, etc have become veritable factories of some of the finest talent that the film industry has seen in the new millennium. On the other hand, directors like the Akhtar siblings excel in getting the stars to become characters in the movies they make. The advent of OTT has also contributed to newer and newer talent like Jaideep Ahalawat, Divyendu, Rasika Duggal, Shweta Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Vikrant Massey, Jitendra Kumar, Neeraj Kabi, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Vijay Varma, and yesteryear talents like Neena Gupta, Raghubir Yadav, etc to flourish, get noticed and become familiar faces and names.

My prediction is that this golden run for character actors is likely to continue, probably forever. With the amount of prolificity in quality content thanks to OTT, as against the caught-in-a-time-warp content on broadcast media, newer and better topics are being explored to being made into either web series or OTT movies. A film like Laapata Ladies which may not have set the box office on fire but was assured of a global audience through its makers Netflix, just happens to be the latest in an assembly line of quality content that could make Sparsh Srivastav, Pratibha Ranta, Nitanshi Goel, Satendra Soni and Chhaya Kadam become the next lot of character actors that not only become household names, but become bankable character actors that producers/directors and audiences alike seek out to bring life to whichever project they choose to be a part of.

More power to characters. More power to the actors who play those characters.    

Be braver. Be kinder.

---

Set in 2001 in fictitious Nirmal Pradesh, Laapata Ladies is a simple story of a groom inadvertently picking up the wrong bride in his hurry to get off the train when his village arrives, and the ensuing fairly linear plot line of trying to find the right bride. But what is wonderfully woven into the script are multiple narratives, some overt and some covert. Taking advantage of the year in which it is set, it helps us realise the distance we’ve all travelled as a society and yet nothing seems to have changed at all. Issues like dowry, male chauvinism and domination, corruption, regressive practices, women’s education and emancipation, small town ambition, etc are all still part of society and they’re touched upon without becoming preachy. The last such movie I can recollect was Shyam Benegal’s Welcome To Sajjanpur. The entire cast is spot on in their respective roles, something Kiran Rao has managed even in Peepli Live. Don’t miss this gem.

Laapata Ladies | Netflix