EXCLUSIVE | Netflix's 'Rana Naidu 2' actor Arjun Rampal: 'Have finished 9-10 projects post the pandemic, some have got stuck with the censor board and...'

Arjun Rampal has displayed shades of black and grey in films like Om Shanti Om, Ra.One, Crakk, and Dhaakad. The actor with a man-mountain aura is now gearing up for the web-series Rana Naidu Season 2 that streams on Netflix this Friday.

And in an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actor spoke about his entrance into this world of darkness and dazzle, playing an antagonist again, and what has changed about the industry post the pandemic.

Edited excerpts from the interview

Rana Naidu is already a dark and stylish show. But with your entry, how much darker, how much more stylish are you making things? 

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I hope it gets more stylish and more, I don’t know, darker or not, but, I think there’s a lot more drama. The conflict is quite amazing. I haven’t played a character like this, you know, who is so brutal and has been given the liberty and flexibility of being so wild. I don’t think I as an actor have been able to explore it. So, I think that’s what makes it quite unique for this character. When Karan and I had discussed this part, for me, it was very important that, even if you’re playing the antagonist or whatever, everybody according to me is a human. And nobody, if you’re playing somebody who is the antagonist, doesn’t believe he’s a bad guy.

For that, he needs to have a very strong belief system. And, that belief system, I think, was incorporated with a sense of levity, which was important. Otherwise, it gets too serious and dark. So it’s quite funny as well. How, you see in a Scorsese film, all of them, even if they’re killing somebody, sometimes you end up, like, laughing or smiling. So, we’ve tried to achieve that. So let’s see, how that pans out. I think Rauf comes with quite a strong enough belief system. He really is there for his community, for his people. And, when Rana comes and disturbs that, then he’s really, you know, going into the hornets nest.

Also, this is not the time that you have played a grey character. So what is the joy of playing such deliciously twisted characters as an actor?

They’re just not boring (Laughs). I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of people ask me the same question, but it’s the same thing. It’s just a little bit more exciting. When you’re playing the protagonist in most films, if the protagonist is not flawed in the case of Rana Naidu, that’s not the case, and that’s why we like the series. Right? Everybody’s kind of flawed. But in general, when you play a protagonist, you’re mister goody good shoes, which none of those people are in real life. When you’re playing a bad guy, okay, you’re, like, really, really bad, which none of us are exact in, real life. So to play characters, which go beyond your thing, you then choose which one is more exciting to do.

And I think what happens when you play characters like this is, you pull so far away from your comfort zone. You know, there is a risk about how audiences will take it and how they will react to you. You are kind of breaking away from the stereotypical thing of creating an image, you know, which is something which I never wanted to be stuck or weighed down by.

So, when you take a risk, when you do something which is totally out of the box, you know, which people don’t expect you to play, then I think you’re being true to your work. Because at the end of the day, the reason why we have careers which go over twenty five years, thirty years, going to forty years, which some of the good actors have, is because there’s always an element of surprise, which this profession allows you to have. And, you should never give that up for anything or trade that or compensate for anything.

You have done such a variety of films in your career, right from Ra.One to Raajneeti to D-Day to Inkaar. What I feel is that after the pandemic, filmmakers and actors have become slightly scared to take risks. So as an actor, do you miss those days when filmmakers and actors actually told different stories and they actually took risks

Well, I’m glad you’ve noticed my body of work, but the thing is that, I don’t think people are not taking risks. People are definitely taking risks. Through this period, from the pandemic to now, I have actually finished about eight to 10 films. And all of them are very different kinds of movies. I’m just waiting for them to be released. Some have got into trouble with the censor board. Some are waiting for the right time to release it. There’s Aparna Sen’s The Rapist, again, a very different kind of a subject, with Konkona. Beautiful story. Very, very, emotional. I think one of Aparna’s best films, that’s ready. It’s waiting for release.

Punjab 95, we don’t know what’s happening with that yet. There’s, two films with Abbas-Mustan that I’ve done. And, you know, Dhurandhar that I’m shooting for. So they’re all very, very different kinds of films. Sangeet Sivan’s last film Blind Game. So all of that is ready. It’s good to go. I don’t know when they will come out, what’s going to happen. I think the problem that’s happened is that there was a kind of a backlog that was created during the pandemic period.

These people did shoot. There were a lot of things. And a lot of people are not very certain about releasing it in theatres. Some were definitely made perfectly only for OTT release. So it really lies with those platforms now, how they bring it out. Also, every time Arjun Rampal has had a face off, it has always been iconic. Be it Ravan, be it household.

You have worked with so many filmmakers who have been in the industry, but in different capacities. Like Farah Khan has been a prominent choreographer before she became a director. Sajid Khan was a very popular face on television. Karan Anshuman has been in the industry for long as a film critic as well. When they come to with a script, what makes you say ‘Okay. I trust him. I trust her, and it’s good to go.’

So you just answered the question within the question. It’s all about trust. You know, 90% of your battle is about how much you’re going to trust this person. And that really, becomes the barometer of your decision making. Once the trust level is there, then obviously, you need to go and you’re going to discuss the character and bring a lot of things and actors see his character very, very differently sometimes from what even the director is seeing and can bring a lot more to that character. To have that open mindedness is very important in any creative job. It’s very difficult to work with people who have very, very fixed and rigid ideas for me because this is a creative space.

Of course, the last call will always be with the director, and you must respect that because it is his vision that you are coming into. So, I think with Karan, and Suparn, my few discussions were all about this. That I don’t want to play anything stereotypical. I don’t want to. I really love your show, and I would love to be a part of it. But, really, I don’t want to play the typical bad guy. It’ll be such a waste. And he just listened to me, and, he said, wait. I’ll come back to you. And then he came back and came back, and we kept going through these scenes. And they just got better and better and better and better.

And then he said, ‘I think I am ready now,’ and we did a reading. And, I just got up and hugged him, and I was like, bro, thank you. Because, you know, now I know I can sink my teeth into this character. And, of course, Karan, Suparn, Abhay, you got three different directors directing the same show, and I’ve never been in a situation like that. But the level of clarity and uniqueness that each one brought again to the table was really, really cool. And I think that’s what keeps the whole franchise and keeps the show so amazingly, fresh because each one’s got their own way of seeing things.