I live, die by my own sword
Harshvardhan Kapoor is an actor unafraid of making bold choices like Mirzya and Bhavesh Joshi and even bolder statements. Read on…
He was just 21 when Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra met him on the sets of Delhi-6 and was convinced he belonged in Mirza-Sahiba’s world. But Harshvardhan Kapoor thought he was too young for the responsibility and so returned to the US to study acting and script-writing. He was back a year later, interned on Bombay Velvet for four months, before reconnecting with Mehra two months before Bhaag Milkha Bhaag released.
“Mehra narrated the first couple of scenes of Mirzya, beautifully written by Gulzar saab, and I was sold. I was drawn to this guy who’d had a traumatic experience as a child and been separated from his girl. He comes back but she doesn’t know it’s him. There’s a vulnerable, rustic, mysterious quality in Adil, a Rajasthan stable boy and polo player, who’s a contrast to the fierce warrior Mirza. One is a boy on his way to becoming a man, the other a man. At 22, I was being asked to embody two drastically different roles, it was difficult and scary!” admits Anil Kapoor’s son.
“I’m a patient guy, I can’t multitask, I’d rather be over-prepped than under,” he reasons, admitting that right now he’s having a heart attack because Vikramaditya Motwane’s vigilante drama, Bhavesh Joshi, rolls soon. “With Mehra we had the script a year in advance, rehearsed at his office and in Rajasthan before the shoot. Anurag Kashyap only started on Bhavesh Joshi’s script after Ramam Raghav 2.0. If I’m terrible I’ll blame Vikram who keeps saying ‘trust me, trust me’. There’s a lot of action which we’ve been working on and will look cool, but we’ll start with the not so dramatic scenes,” he says.
He’d auditioned for the fantasy drama earlier, but the role then had gone to Imran Khan. He was also in the running for Life Of Pi but Ang Lee thought he looked too much like a city boy. “Ang Lee’s casting director Avy Kaufman really liked me and got me an audition for the pilot of the HBO’s drama series Criminal Justice in LA but it didn’t take off till I returned,” Harsh reveals, happy with the two films he’s landed which he believes will be genre breakers and talked about 10 years from now irrespective of how they fare. “I’m like a freedom fighter going into battle. I listen to people’s opinions but live and die by my own sword.”
Having grown up on a diet of cinema from Hollywood blockbusters like The Godfather and The Silence Of the Lambs which he’d seen by 13 to the films of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gael Garcia Bernal, he wants to be a part of the vision of master storytellers. Bhavesh Joshi is a leap forward from Mehra’s Mirzya, more urban and conversational. “The script’s changed from 2013 when the Congress ruled. I’m not politically inclined and it’s fiction, but having lived in Mumbai for 25 years, I can say some of the stuff is relevant to the state,” asserts the Kashyap fan.
He agrees Bombay Velvet was a dud and not the film it set out to be but argues that it had the year’s best soundtrack, great costumes and sets and a super act by Ranbir Kapoor. “It should have been a mini series on HBO or Netflix and not condensed into a two-hour-20-minute film. What excited me about the book, Mumbai Fables, was the underworld, the contractors and the reclamation which made the city in the ’60s and ’70s nostalgic. But Bombay Velvet ended up being Rosy and Johnny’s love story which could have been said anywhere,” he sighs.
He still believes it was the right step for Kashyap who’s made for bigger films than Paanch, Black Friday, Gulaal and Ugly. “I was really disappointed when Alvin Kalicharan with dad did not work out, it’d have been a revolutionary film.
It can still be made with me, but five years from now, as the character is older and fierce, more about presence and silence. After seeing Raman Raghav 2.0, I told Anurag that if I became a star, I’d like to make a big film with him,” he reveals, wishing he could have played Imran Khan’s role in Delhi Belly, Abhishek Bachchan’s in Delhi-6, Abhay Deol’s in Dev D and Ranveer Singh’s in Lootera.
Quiz him on link-ups and he rues that they can be intrusive and ruin things when you’re getting to know someone. He’s cynical about finding love when his mind is so preoccupied. He’s had one serious relationship in college, it ended because he was in the US and she in Mumbai. “After Bhavesh Joshi I want to take some time off to go back to what I was like before. No responsibilities, no prep, no places to show up and no people to please,” he reveals, adding that he doesn’t believe he has to act for 25 years to be successful. “I want to direct and produce too. This is a director’s medium and some of the best struggle to make the films they want to. Anand Gandhi, a good friend and one of the few directors capable of achieving global success, found it so hard to make Ship of Theseus. I’ll definitely work with him some day. For now it’s the vigilante. With Mirzya, I’ve surpassed my own expectations, with Bhavesh Joshi I want to take it a notch higher,” he signs off, readying for a four-hour script session.
FAMILY MATTERS
ON DAD ANIL: Initially, he was frightened by my choices but slowly came around. Everyone wants their kids to take the safe path but it is safest to do what you believe in. Parinda is dad’s best film and as a performer I’d say My Wife’s Murder, Nayak, Pukar, Slumdog Millionaire and Dil Dhadakne Do. I’ve seen Tezaab, didn’t like Beta or Ram Lakhan and don’t think Mirzya can be compared to any of his films or anything else.
Ranbir (Kapoor) messaged me after seeing the Mirzya trailer to say that I can’t be compared to anyone, I’m a different kind of a beast. Yes, I don’t see myself in the same bracket as Tiger (Shroff) or Sooraj (Pancholi). Even Varun (Dhawan) and Sidharth (Malhotra) who are older, have made different choices and an actor is defined by his choices.
ON SISTER SONAM: Sonam’s best works have been with Rakeysh Mehra, Aanand L Rai and Ram Madhvani, directors I’d like to work with too. For me Delhi-6 was her first film because in it she truly came alive rather than Saawariya, a beautiful presentation. Raanjhanaa was path-breaking and Neerja my favourite in 2016 as I was crying in the first 20 minutes and was moved throughout. She held you with her performance and Ram with his story telling in one location.
When Sonam joined hands with an Abbas-Mustaan or an Anees Bazmee it’s didn’t work for her. I was 17 when she did Saaawariya. She’s a skilful performer with phenomenal movie star presence yet people wanted to pull her down till she proved herself.
ON COUSIN ARJUN: Arjun is from a different world having grown up on different films. He likes the Michael Bay films like Transformers and ’90s hits like Men in Black and Mission Impossible. My idols are Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling. Everyone talks about how good-looking Brad is and not his work in The Tree Of Life and Fight Club. Ryan too has done Drive, Only God Forgives alongside a Gangster Squad. I liked Arjun’s 2 States, a marriage of conviction and the commercial.
He was just 21 when Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra met him on the sets of Delhi-6 and was convinced he belonged in Mirza-Sahiba’s world. But Harshvardhan Kapoor thought he was too young for the responsibility and so returned to the US to study acting and script-writing. He was back a year later, interned on Bombay Velvet for four months, before reconnecting with Mehra two months before Bhaag Milkha Bhaag released.
“Mehra narrated the first couple of scenes of Mirzya, beautifully written by Gulzar saab, and I was sold. I was drawn to this guy who’d had a traumatic experience as a child and been separated from his girl. He comes back but she doesn’t know it’s him. There’s a vulnerable, rustic, mysterious quality in Adil, a Rajasthan stable boy and polo player, who’s a contrast to the fierce warrior Mirza. One is a boy on his way to becoming a man, the other a man. At 22, I was being asked to embody two drastically different roles, it was difficult and scary!” admits Anil Kapoor’s son.
But this time he gave the nod and a month later, Mehra told him Mirzya was on. For the next yearand-a-half he rode and practised archery every day. By the time they went to Ladakh to shoot, horses were his life and he shot better than the mountain archers. He’d signed the film in June 2013, it’ll be out in October 2016. The debutant is unfazed, saying with Mehra you can’t just show up and wing it.
“I’m a patient guy, I can’t multitask, I’d rather be over-prepped than under,” he reasons, admitting that right now he’s having a heart attack because Vikramaditya Motwane’s vigilante drama, Bhavesh Joshi, rolls soon. “With Mehra we had the script a year in advance, rehearsed at his office and in Rajasthan before the shoot. Anurag Kashyap only started on Bhavesh Joshi’s script after Ramam Raghav 2.0. If I’m terrible I’ll blame Vikram who keeps saying ‘trust me, trust me’. There’s a lot of action which we’ve been working on and will look cool, but we’ll start with the not so dramatic scenes,” he says.
He’d auditioned for the fantasy drama earlier, but the role then had gone to Imran Khan. He was also in the running for Life Of Pi but Ang Lee thought he looked too much like a city boy. “Ang Lee’s casting director Avy Kaufman really liked me and got me an audition for the pilot of the HBO’s drama series Criminal Justice in LA but it didn’t take off till I returned,” Harsh reveals, happy with the two films he’s landed which he believes will be genre breakers and talked about 10 years from now irrespective of how they fare. “I’m like a freedom fighter going into battle. I listen to people’s opinions but live and die by my own sword.”
Having grown up on a diet of cinema from Hollywood blockbusters like The Godfather and The Silence Of the Lambs which he’d seen by 13 to the films of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gael Garcia Bernal, he wants to be a part of the vision of master storytellers. Bhavesh Joshi is a leap forward from Mehra’s Mirzya, more urban and conversational. “The script’s changed from 2013 when the Congress ruled. I’m not politically inclined and it’s fiction, but having lived in Mumbai for 25 years, I can say some of the stuff is relevant to the state,” asserts the Kashyap fan.
He agrees Bombay Velvet was a dud and not the film it set out to be but argues that it had the year’s best soundtrack, great costumes and sets and a super act by Ranbir Kapoor. “It should have been a mini series on HBO or Netflix and not condensed into a two-hour-20-minute film. What excited me about the book, Mumbai Fables, was the underworld, the contractors and the reclamation which made the city in the ’60s and ’70s nostalgic. But Bombay Velvet ended up being Rosy and Johnny’s love story which could have been said anywhere,” he sighs.
He still believes it was the right step for Kashyap who’s made for bigger films than Paanch, Black Friday, Gulaal and Ugly. “I was really disappointed when Alvin Kalicharan with dad did not work out, it’d have been a revolutionary film.
It can still be made with me, but five years from now, as the character is older and fierce, more about presence and silence. After seeing Raman Raghav 2.0, I told Anurag that if I became a star, I’d like to make a big film with him,” he reveals, wishing he could have played Imran Khan’s role in Delhi Belly, Abhishek Bachchan’s in Delhi-6, Abhay Deol’s in Dev D and Ranveer Singh’s in Lootera.
Quiz him on link-ups and he rues that they can be intrusive and ruin things when you’re getting to know someone. He’s cynical about finding love when his mind is so preoccupied. He’s had one serious relationship in college, it ended because he was in the US and she in Mumbai. “After Bhavesh Joshi I want to take some time off to go back to what I was like before. No responsibilities, no prep, no places to show up and no people to please,” he reveals, adding that he doesn’t believe he has to act for 25 years to be successful. “I want to direct and produce too. This is a director’s medium and some of the best struggle to make the films they want to. Anand Gandhi, a good friend and one of the few directors capable of achieving global success, found it so hard to make Ship of Theseus. I’ll definitely work with him some day. For now it’s the vigilante. With Mirzya, I’ve surpassed my own expectations, with Bhavesh Joshi I want to take it a notch higher,” he signs off, readying for a four-hour script session.
FAMILY MATTERS
ON DAD ANIL: Initially, he was frightened by my choices but slowly came around. Everyone wants their kids to take the safe path but it is safest to do what you believe in. Parinda is dad’s best film and as a performer I’d say My Wife’s Murder, Nayak, Pukar, Slumdog Millionaire and Dil Dhadakne Do. I’ve seen Tezaab, didn’t like Beta or Ram Lakhan and don’t think Mirzya can be compared to any of his films or anything else.
Ranbir (Kapoor) messaged me after seeing the Mirzya trailer to say that I can’t be compared to anyone, I’m a different kind of a beast. Yes, I don’t see myself in the same bracket as Tiger (Shroff) or Sooraj (Pancholi). Even Varun (Dhawan) and Sidharth (Malhotra) who are older, have made different choices and an actor is defined by his choices.
ON SISTER SONAM: Sonam’s best works have been with Rakeysh Mehra, Aanand L Rai and Ram Madhvani, directors I’d like to work with too. For me Delhi-6 was her first film because in it she truly came alive rather than Saawariya, a beautiful presentation. Raanjhanaa was path-breaking and Neerja my favourite in 2016 as I was crying in the first 20 minutes and was moved throughout. She held you with her performance and Ram with his story telling in one location.
When Sonam joined hands with an Abbas-Mustaan or an Anees Bazmee it’s didn’t work for her. I was 17 when she did Saaawariya. She’s a skilful performer with phenomenal movie star presence yet people wanted to pull her down till she proved herself.
ON COUSIN ARJUN: Arjun is from a different world having grown up on different films. He likes the Michael Bay films like Transformers and ’90s hits like Men in Black and Mission Impossible. My idols are Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling. Everyone talks about how good-looking Brad is and not his work in The Tree Of Life and Fight Club. Ryan too has done Drive, Only God Forgives alongside a Gangster Squad. I liked Arjun’s 2 States, a marriage of conviction and the commercial.
