“Zed Plus is one of my best films” - Adil Hussain

“Zed Plus is a big film”

You hardly come across a script like Zed Plus in India. It’s a big film. Lot of money was spent on it and it’s still being spent on promotions. Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi is a name, which I respect right from the time I watched his serial Chanakya. It was one of the finest TV series that was ever produced. So when he calls and says, “Adil saheb I would like to meet you and like to narrate a story.” I was like Wow! I went to meet him in Habitat center where he was staying. I was totally blown by the story. There is puncturewala and I said wow! Finally I get a role I’ve never played. And if someone can conceive me in a role of puncturewala in a light hearted satire which is something new for me then why wouldn’t I do it? And for me it was a challenge because I hadn’t played this role before. Zed Plus is story of a common man who is given zed plus security and what happens to his life due to that. And how easily can people get corrupt by getting such power. I recently read that PM Narendra Modi’s wife filed an RTI complain to know that who are these people who are covering her, she needs to know because Indira Gandhi was murdered by her own security guard. She also asked why her security is traveling in a government car and why she is travelling in public transport and also wants to know other facilities she can get as the wife of the PM. So Zed Plus is the story of this puncturewala. How the prime minister turned up in a small place like Fatehpur and what happened there because of this puncturewala Aslam Khan, who happens to become a khadim for a day in peepalwale peer ki dargah. It’s a very humorous film but has deep aspects life.

 
“Monkeys used to come and watch movie”

I come from a very small town call Goalpada in Assam which is a district headquarter town. I think it was the most backward headquarter in the country, where newspapers used to come 3 days after it is published. There was one theatre hall where monkeys used to come and watch movies. So that’s where I grew up. There is one puncture shop, 3 minutes away from my home. And in a small town like that where the population was very less those days, everybody knew everybody. Even puncturewala would come to my house during Eid. We called him dada. That was the kind of culture we had. When you’re seven years old and riding your cycle and it gets punctured, you’re bound to go there every third or fourth day. You sit there but there’s no TV, no newspaper, no phone, no cinema, so how do you satisfy your curiosity? By interacting with him and seeing what he’s doing. Your hard drive is free, not overloaded by the information like today. I didn’t know back then that I’d play a puncturewala someday. I didn’t have to travel to my childhood, it just came. And I’m from National School Drama where I had teachers like Barry John, Naseeruddin Shah, Khalid Taiyyab. They taught me how to change my body language, my voice and also how to change my personality. But I was worried for one simple reason that I’ve lived away from Assam in city life for 25 years, then abroad for 4. So you tend to become western in a way, in my attitude, value system, body language. So the most difficult part was to go back to the innocence that people have in small towns. We city people have lost it because we live in a cutthroat competitive world. So that aspect retaining the innocence of Aslam Khan was the biggest challenge for me. And even when he is angry he is innocently angry, almost like a kid.

“I wasn’t comfortable for long time in early days of my career”

Dr Dwivedi has written the kissing scenes so I was sure he was very comfortable writing it. He writes tara-tar chumne laga (laughs). When I read, I started laughing and I asked him, “Dr saheb aap tara tar chumne laga istemaal karte hain?” Well I wasn’t comfortable for a long time in early days of my career. I have done lot of films, which hasn’t been released in India. Some of them released but nobody saw them because no one knew about them. In my first film, a Bengali film Iti Srikanta I had to do a steamy scene with Reema Sen. Soha was also my heroine. So I was very uncomfortable. It’s a male habitation in an Indian situation. Will she think I’m taking advantage of her? Then I did an Italian film and I had to do a kissing scene. It was an Indian story based in America called Gangor, which got me best actor award at several film festivals. I had a scene in the film where I was very bad. My wife said, “What happened to you? You are so good at it, what happened? I said everybody was looking at me. You need a lot of courage to look vulnerable and she said if you do it, do it well otherwise don’t do it. My wife Christan is extremely supportive. She’s also an actor. She told me that Adil, you have to do it properly. It’s embarrassing to see you in bad situations. And thankfully, I was comfortable with my co-actor, Ekavali Khanna, with whom I have an extra marital affair in the film. There were too many takes from different angles. There were no retakes. It was a normal scene but I was a bit conscious.

“Directors ask me to become famous”

Several directors have told me, “Adil you please become famous so that we can cast you in our films as lead’. And there are a lot of stories they would like to see me in as a lead. I say how can I become famous if you don’t cast me? They said we don’t know how but Adil please become famous. I took these things jokingly. Most of the directors I know want to make a good film. But then the people who put in the money, then the marketing department in every production house decide what should do. I think they should evolve and rethink about what they think about the public. They think they know the public but quite often they fail. So there is big deficiency amongst the people who think they know what is public pulse. I doubt they know anything about public because I think they underestimate the Indian audience. They think that Indian audience stupid. I think that’s l disrespecting a nation that grows up watching complicated epics like Ramayan and  Mahabharat.

“It’s one of my best work”

I think if people know about Zed Plus and are watching it then that means they’re aware of it. The makers have spent money on promotion. Also, I’d like to thank Kapil Sharma and his show, which I was totally flabbergasted and mesmerized by the amount of people who watch it. If people come to see the film then there will be definitely due to a good word of mouth going across, “Hey, you should see this film”. Because it’s a very powerful story very interestingly told. We are acting very seriously but the situations are very funny. You can say that this is one of my best works.