I like characters who get lost in the crowd: Nawazuddin Siddiqui

It's very difficult for me to make myself presentable and stand out. But I feel very good that I am sitting in a corner and no one is looking at me... rather, I'm observing others, Siddiqui said

New Delhi: Like most actors, his aim is to disappear into his character. And unlike most movie stars, Nawazuddin Siddiqui would like to get lost in a crowd in real life too – the equivalent maybe of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

“It’s very difficult for me to make myself presentable and stand out. But I feel very good that I am sitting in a corner and no one is looking at me… rather, I’m observing others,” Siddiqui said. “I feel the world is a 70mm film and I’m watching it,” added the actor who became a star playing everyday people, be it in small roles such as in “Munnabhai MBBS” and “Peepli Live” or performances in acclaimed titles, including “The Lunchbox”, “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” and “Maanjhi”.

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Siddiqui’s journey from Budhana in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi’s National School of Drama and then to Mumbai from where he emerged as one of the Hindi film industry’s most versatile stars after a long struggle is the stuff dreams are made of. The aspiring actor went straight from watching C-grade films to world cinema.

Growing up in Budhana, he said there were no literary or cultural influences but there was a ‘kachcha theatre’ that would mostly show C-grade movies. “I have grown up watching those movies and when I came to the city, I went to the National School of Drama and I was introduced to world cinema there so I missed a lot of Bollywood movies in between, which I saw later.”

The 50-year-old said he still considers each character a fresh challenge, the latest being his portrayal of former customs officer Costao Fernandes in a new film on ZEE5. In fact, if he had to have one of his characters as a travel companion, it would be that of a regular Mumbai tourist photographer from director Ritesh Batra’s “Photograph”.

“It’s the kind of person who does not have a status and has nothing special about him. Even if he passes in front of you, you won’t pay attention to him. I like such characters who get lost in the crowd,” he said.

Isn’t it the antithesis of what actors want — to stand out and be noticed? “I don’t want it. My aim is to not stand out even in real life. There are a lot of my friends, my seniors, like Manoj Bhai (Bajpayee), who often says that ‘if you make Nawaz stand in the crowd, you won’t even know where he is, he merges with the crowd’. So, I have that, and I like it,” he said.