Abhimanyu Dassani on Nikamma: ‘I didn’t want to be the hero; I wanted to be the character’

Abhimanyu Dassani has made a conscious choice of picking diverse, unconventional and experimental roles for his projects. He made a wonderful off-beat debut in 2018 with action-comedy and internationally acclaimed  _ Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota ._ He followed that up with romantic comedy  Meenakshi Sundareshwar  (2021) and now he’s all set to step out in Nikamma which is a remake of 2017 Telugu film Middle Class Abbayi. The 32-year-old son of actress Bhagyashree and Himalaya Dassani, who plays a young, jobless, carefree boy in the film, says it was challenging in bringing out that feel of a useless and inefficient person. “People should feel that looking at my character that he is useless. Nikamma is an essence, it is not a word, it is a feeling. You go to any part of the world and you will find at least one nikamma in every house. This feeling is so common,” he says. With an interesting line-up including the family comedy entertainer  Aankh Micholi , Dassani is carving his path to stardom with one project at a time. Excerpts from a chat with the actor:

Is it a conscious decision to pick unconventional themes?

When my first film came out at that time everyone liked to stereotype, we put labels on people and things in our life to make ourselves feel safer. You draw a pattern so you can calculate whatever is happening around you, it makes you feel safer. So every time that you put Abhimanyu in a box, I promise you I will break that. On twitter there is a pinned tweet of mine that says: ‘You will get tired of extending the finishing line before I get tired of crossing it’. So yes, every film of mine for the first five to six releases I am attempting to hit an absolutely different genre that tests my limitations.

What attracted you to Nikamma?

Obviously the director Sabbir Khan, his reputation precedes him. The way he made Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon look in their first film, the way he presented them, their careers just took off. Very few people are able to do that with newcomers and I would still call myself a newcomer. Secondly, I liked the story. Conventional commercial films have a love story at its core but I call this unconventional because the core is Indian traditional values, it is the relation between the devar and his bhabhi, a self-realisation of a man, how be becomes a man from a boy, nikamma se insaan kaise hota hai. Thirdly, a couple of years back Salman (Khan) Bhai who had heard about my debut film Mard Ko Dard …he met me and told me that I want to see you in an action commercial film, so while I was reading the script somewhere in my head it was playing a big part that maybe this is the film that I want to do.

The film has been ready since 2020, does the delay bother you?

My first film _Mard Ko Dard…_I signed in 2016 but we started shooting only at the end of 2017 and audiences got to see it in 2018, so I have started like that. I guess that first experience built some amount of patience in me. Everything has its own time and when it happens it happens for the good. I am excited for people to watch our labour, more excited because it has been a long wait.

You seem to have made Shilpa Shetty nervous as she says she felt like a nikammi in front of you.  She has said that you only look like a newcomer but you are brilliant in what you do…

For that I will give credit only to the phenom Hrithik Roshan . Phenom is someone who changes the game. Michael Jordan is a phenom, Lionel Messi is a phenom, Cristiano Ronaldo is a phenom…When Hrithik came we had not seen the kind of hysteria and after that we have all been having to work really hard. We are still making efforts. I have been in this industry since 2009. I have been an assistant director, I have assisted on multiple films like Dum Maro Dum, Nautanki Saala, Phata Poster Nikla Hero…Today if get an opportunity with Vasan (Bala, writer-director, Mard Ko Dard..) sir I will wear a mask, put a cap on and become an AD.  I have studied Finance and in Finance you get a summer break; at that time I went to New York Film Academy (NYFA) and Lee Strasberg Institute to study acting. I did a lot of workshops of Neeraj Kabi, Vinod Rawat…even now whenever I get an opportunity I message these people and join them.

How was it working with Shilpa Shetty , she seems to play this woman with super power…?

No no, she plays my sister-in-law**,** all those things about her being a super woman is only my vaham (superstition). He is a nikamma and he keeps daydreaming (laughs).

Did you watch the original Telugu film Middle Class Abbayi ?

I still haven’t seen it. I wouldn’t want to watch because then subconsciously you have an image in mind. Therefore, I have taken a very different approach to this character. I have that on the bed look, stubble… I gained 10 kilograms for the role and these are usual stuff but I got something more for this character. I remembered myself being a nikamma at the time when I was one. In everybody’s life there is one person who is often found sleeping and keeps complaining that their sleep is not complete. I wanted to bring that into this character to make it a little deeper. You will see me having dark circles around my eyes throughout the film. That is something the director was not happy about but I told him that let’s do something different. I don’t want to be the hero; I want to be the character. I have chubby cheeks; I want to show that this guy doesn’t take care of himself.

Could you relate to the character at any point of time?

Of course, I could relate to this character. It is good to go through that phase in life because something happens and then you realise that you have to take action, you have to write your own destiny and you have to realise who you are as a person. It was great to go through that mental cycle again because then I realised that I would still like to change a lot of things about me.

This one is an official remake but talking about remakes it is felt that lack of original scripts abound as Hindi films continue churning copies from other regional films…

Why were we not talking about remakes five years back? Why we are talking about it now and that is because right now there is this lovely negativity going on and everyone wants to just jump on the bandwagon. For many Allu Arjun is a superstar now but for me Allu Arjun was a superstar 10 years back. Irrespective of the language, if there is a story which has a soul and if the soul is something that would connect to various audiences you make it so that you can diversify that message onto a bigger audience.

What kind of action one gets to see in this film? How different is it from Mard Ko Dard?

It is a very commercial action. I have used a little bit of krav maga which I learnt in Turkey in 2019, I learnt hand to hand combat. I have helped in choreography and all the stunts are done by me. There is little stylised action, it has got different emotions and aesthetics here.

Do you give inputs during the making of the film?

I give inputs to every single thing. I am very collaborative right from dialogues to writing to editing to marketing. Marketing is somewhat unconventional and after a few times you will see a pattern every time I am part of a film.

You have one more release this year Aankh Micholi, can you tell us something about the film?

Aankh Micholi is a wholesome family comedy that we used to have in the early 2000s and then everything turned into sexual innuendos. This one is a clean, family film. I am excited again to break that mould of commercial action.

Which genre attracts you the most – Action, Romance or Comedy?

Action and that is because I grew up watching Jackie Chan, Tom Cruise. They do action stunts themselves, so they are my idols in that particular aspect. I always wanted to do action since I was a kid so now when I do it I do it for myself, that gives me a lot of happiness. I believe that I am good at it.

What were the major challenges for Nikamma?

This has been a very challenging film for me. In my first and second film I was more comfortable in my skin. It is a very commercial aspect where you also have to dance, look good, do action, do comedy, have to be a bit loud as well, you are tested on every ground on every single day. For me it was a tough film and even tougher when I got into it. But my director has been very warm, collaborative and very supportive.

Directed by Sabbir Khan and co-starring Shilpa Shetty and Shirley Setia, Nikamma releases on 17 June.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.

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