 "EXCLUSIVE! Director Sejal Shah on Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Costao: ‘He was bit a maverick and a mad man’ | Not Just Bollywood")
Costao is a very complex protagonist, and director Sejal Shah brought that out brilliantly in his character, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Based on a true story, the film is about a Goan customs officer, Costao Fernandes (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who made history by catching a massive gold smuggling operation in the 1990s.
In an EXCLUSIVE interview with Firstpost’s Lachmi Deb Roy, Shah talks about Costao who is a bit of a maverick and the way she wanted to show the character in the film. There is absolute honesty in her approach and the way Nawazuddin has depicted it.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
What made you come up with the idea of **_Costao_** and make it into a movie?
I used to be a journalist before I became a producer. I also had this goal of wanting to direct. I was also working on a couple of ideas and meeting a lot of people. And I was a journalist, as you know. I have a friend of mine called Pranati, who used to work for Indian Express. When I met her once, actually four to five years back. She introduced me to this person called PK Das, who was actually Costao’s boss. He is a very senior guy in customs and very respected. I was just chatting with him and in one of the conversations, he mentioned Costao. I knew about this story, which happened in the 90s.
When I started reading about Costao, I asked him to introduce me to him. Das very specifically told me that Costao had been approached several times for a film, but he isn’t very keen. I went to Goa and spent time with him and it took a lot of time to earn his confidence and trust. Most people love to talk on their heroic battles, but Costao’s case was very complicated. Even while watching the movie Costao, you must have realised that he is a very complex protagonist.
What was the process of casting Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Costao? And what was one of the characteristics of Costao that you wanted to highlight?
When I went to Nawaz, I very specifically told him that we don’t want to do a whitewash hero, like in typical films where we see a hero, heroine, dancer, comedian and all that. Costao
played by Nawaz is definitely a heroic guy, but he feels guilty. His attitude towards family fails and he realises that. There are a lot of complexities in the character of Costao and that’s what interested me.
When we met him for this movie, never once did he say that we should show only good things about him. He is such a truthful man that he demanded the same from us. There was a lot of creative integrity that went into the film. Many felt that we should have shown a happier ending. That’s because we are so used to seeing whitewashed characters and so much romanticization of a hero that nobody wants to see a hero who is flawed. But I believe that all humans are flawed. That is what interested me about Costao. And that’s how the film happened.
Going back to Nawazuddin Siddiqui, he is an actor with a very strong Hindi diction. How did you manage to help him play a Goan man?
Nawaz, as you know, is an extremely dedicated actor, and knowing his caliber, I knew that he would be able to fit into this character. The idea was to not make a caricature and, secondly, to get the soul of the person. And he understood the character of Costao and did his role brilliantly.
I realised that Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s eyes were doing most of the talking. The expressions were brilliant. How did you bring about the honesty in the character?
All of us worked on the film in such a way that there should be some honesty to the character. He, according to me, got everything that the character demanded. And Costa was also a maverick. He is a bit of a madman. And then it gets very easy for a director when you are working with an actor of that caliber. He understood the exact tone and treatment of the character.
WATCH the trailer of ZEE5’s Costao here:
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