Rahul Bhat on quitting television at his peak, long gap between Ugly and Kennedy: ‘When I was a bad actor I was a star’

KENNEDY by Anurag KASHYAP
#SéanceDeMinuit / #MidnightScreenings #Cannes2023

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) April 13, 2023

Edited excerpts:

How did Kennedy happen? For someone who took such a long break after getting appreciation for Ugly and now back to Cannes, how was the journey?

I was shooting for Dobaaraa (2022) with Anurag, during Covid-19. Something triggered in him… he had this story in his mind for many years about an insomniac, crazy cop. Sudhir Mishra had told him the story and one day he just sent me a mail saying, ‘you are my Kennedy’. Nothing surprises me when it is Anurag Kashyap because he has this ability to come up with something that normal people won’t ever do. He makes his own path, he really is very different from others and a very confident director. When he believes in somebody, then there is no looking back. I am very lucky that he looks at me like that.

You and Anurag have come together for another project with dark undertones…

At the time when we made Kennedy, the world was going through a very tough time. We were just coming out of Covid-19 and it was very gloomy. The story is actually set in Covid, so it kind of brings some kind of authenticity to the darkness. Having said that, I think there is something special about Anurag that he delves deep into his darkness and he also takes me along and pushes me more towards the realm. Maybe, in India, we are used to running around trees and making it a light and nice film but now so many filmmakers are now making such interesting cinema, not necessarily dark, but it is different stories which happen to be dark.

Heena, Ugly and then a long break…what was it that kept you away from work?

Work was coming to me but I was choosy; I wanted to work with certain kind of directors and do a certain kind of cinema. At the time we were doing Ugly, I got a lot of film offers but I was not really happy with the kind of work coming my way. But now with OTT, the whole game has changed, actors like me are suddenly in demand. They want actors who can bring their craft and a certain kind of authenticity to their character. This is the time for me as an actor, I want to do a lot of work now. It has started with Kennedy and I am not going to take any break anymore.

In between the kind of breaks I took were… I want to give my hundred per cent. I feel if the director or the script are not really in sync and they are not giving their hundred per cent then I get very disappointed. So I always wanted to do good work, I don’t even know what that means, but I always waited for great directors to call me and work with me because I really am very serious about my craft. Now I feel, with all kinds of platforms opening up, it is a great time for actors like me, I am not in the game of numbers, I never was. It is very strange, when I was a bad actor in Heena, I was a star. Now, when I feel that I have learnt something about my craft and I am like, ‘yeh kya baat ho gayi! (referring to not getting offers)’, I have to really wait for good directors to come, but now luckily, in the last couple of years, the whole scenario is changing and it is looking bright.

Rahul Bhat starred in TV show Heena as Sameer along with Simone Singh. (Photo: Sony Entertainment Television/ YouTube)

Do you regret giving up TV after Heena? You were at the top and TV actors who started their journey then have become superstars, today.

I am not that person who says I don’t have regrets in life and everything happens for a reason… but with that experience you learn a lot of things. Sometimes I feel I should have done a lot of television, but then I also feel that I would have burnt out. Over the years, I honed my craft, I was watching movies, I was reading books about acting. When I say I was a bad actor, I really mean it because sometimes bad actors can become stars. The criteria to become a star is not great acting. I wanted to be an actor from childhood, so that kind of thirst threw me towards learning my craft better and understanding what I was doing. When I started watching world cinema and saw these great masters of their craft, I understood that there is a long way for me. I don’t say that I have understood it completely now but I am on my way.

Did you face financial struggle during the period, ever took up a job just for the money?

That thought crossed me many times because television was offering me big money, even now they keep chasing me. But then you have to decide… In between I produced TV shows for Zee TV, Star and all of them, I never acted in my shows, I produced to sustain myself.

I knew that the television scene in India that time was not really great for actors who think like me, so I consciously took a step back, I was getting bored in Heena by the end of it, doing the same thing again and again, that’s not something I wanted to do, so I started producing for three- four years but later on I got bored of that too. So I decided that something else has to happen and Anurag Kashyap gave me Ugly. I don’t know why he offered me Ugly, we were not good friends.