In Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan , Shaalu (played by Shweta Tripathi) tells Deepak (Vicky Kaushal), “ Aap mein ek imaandari hai jo bakiyo mein nahi (There is an honesty in you that is rare).” The same can be said for the actor who essayed this memorable role. The earnestness with which Kaushal plays his characters is earning him fans within the industry as well as among audiences. With two releases behind him this year — the Netflix Original film Love Per Square Foot and Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi — and more coming up (Sanju , Rajkumar Hirani’s biopic on actor Sanjay Dutt; Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan, and Karan Johar’s section in Lust Stories ), the 30-year-old Kaushal appears to be on the winning track.
We meet at his high-rise apartment in Mumbai’s Andheri West on a bright midweek morning. It is the week after Raazi hit theatres, and Kaushal is beaming ear-to-ear at the fantastic reception from audiences and critics alike. “Honestly, we are all pleasantly surprised with the response because, while we had faith in our film, we never thought of it as very mass-ey.” Expected to amass ₹120-plus crore domestically, the film is set to become a blockbuster hit.
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In a country where nationalism is increasingly about chest-thumping and demonising the enemy across the border, Raazi ’s characters and treatment are refreshingly more evolved. While the film does posit that duty to nation is above all else, it questions — with nuance and empathy — the collateral damage to human lives and relationships. Kaushal had a blast playing Iqbal. “The character had a lot of novelty for me as it was defying the stereotypical notion of a Pakistani soldier as a crude, cruel man. Iqbal has a stern back but he’s got a tender heart, and to play that contradiction at the same time in every frame was beautiful.”
He shares how, before the film released, people would ask him if he had any apprehensions about playing a Pakistani onscreen. But those very people later told him how great they found the film, especially Iqbal’s character. “That means they forgot the borders, and that’s what the film is about. It is not about ‘my country is good and yours is evil’. It’s a more human story. And it felt nice that we could actually communicate that.”
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Almost a decade old in the industry now, Kaushal was initially seen in films such as Mozez Singh’s Zubaan , Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0 , Anand Tiwari’s Love Per Square Foot and, of course, his début, the awards-favourite Masaan .
His father is the veteran Bollywood action director Sham Kaushal, who has films like Om Shanti Om , Dangal and Padmaavat to his credit. Kaushal is not the typical celebrity son in Bollywood, but he is not an outsider either. Despite his father’s filmi background, the first time Kaushal Jr ever went to a film set was in Std X, to meet Hrithik Roshan, who was shooting for Fiza . Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai had released the previous year and cast a spell on audiences, especially the youth. Kaushal recalls a funny incident where he was pranked by his father’s assistant into believing that Roshan only met kids who could dance to his hit number ‘Ek Pal Ka Jeena’. Poor Kaushal Jr rigorously practised the routine for three whole days before he finally got to meet his idol!
Turns out that Kaushal is a great dancer, something his fans are yet to discover. Shweta Tripathi, Kaushal’s Masaan co-star, met him in 2010 when she was an assistant director on a film called Trishna , directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed. It had a promotional dance song called ‘Maintenance’, starring Huma Qureshi and a ‘new boy’ Tripathi hadn’t heard of. “I was expecting Vicky to be an ‘item boy’ type. When I met him, I thought he was a sweet, unassuming guy. But when he came to shoot the song, I saw him dance, and he literally took the stage by storm. Everybody needs to see him dance!”
However, Kaushal realised his calling was films only midway through engineering college (“the best years of my life”), and he enrolled himself in an acting academy soon after graduating. A long-time collaborator of Kashyap, Kaushal Sr introduced his son to the filmmaker, who agreed to have him intern as an assistant director (AD) on the Gangs of Wasseypur (GoW) set.
After his work with GoW , he did the audition rounds and took up small roles such as the anonymous lead in Vasan Bala’s short film Geek Out , and as the young Kunal Kapoor in Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana . Kashyap, who directed Kaushal in Raman Raghav 2.0 , speaks fondly of his protégé. “I’ve known Vicky since he was a kid and I was making Black Friday . He was always a shy, quiet kid, and Sunny (his brother) was the naughtier one. When he started interning on GoW , he was the hardest worker on set.”
Fate has been kind to him too — though he had first shot for the forgettable Zubaan , it was the much-loved Masaan that released earlier, in 2015, and became his début. His role as Deepak, a young boy from the lower-caste Dom community in Benaras who goes through a personal tragedy, won him best début awards at IIFA, Zee Cine, Star Screen, among others. The film received a standing ovation at its world première at the Cannes International Film Festival, besides picking up two jury prizes, and a National Award for Best Début Film back home.
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Ghaywan, the director of Masaan , first met Kaushal on the sets of GoW — it was the first step into the film industry for both, as assistant directors. Ghaywan recalls that Kaushal would take a bus to work while the rest of the crew always used autos. “He’s been raised in a way to make his own road. I found that very rooted about him.” In GoW , the first AD died on set in a freak accident barely two weeks after shooting began. “He [Kaushal] ended up filling the shoes of a first AD when he had just started out; his honesty and hard work are inspiring.”
Fast-forward three years to Masaan , which was supposed to star Rajkummar Rao in the role that eventually went to Kaushal, as the dates didn’t work out. “Frankly, I had my reservations about Vicky even though he was a good friend. He is a very Punjabi guy, Bombay-bred, and I needed someone from the hinterland for this role,” says Ghaywan. But as luck would have it, Mukesh Chhabra, Bollywood’s sought-after casting director, called Kaushal for a screen test and his audition blew everyone away.
Ghaywan is all praise for the actor’s talent and dedication. “He came on set a couple of weeks early to observe the people and the city, to absorb the nuances of the character. Directing him was an inspiration — for me, as a first-time director, he became so much of Deepak that I would draw notes from him.” Kaushal reciprocates the feeling. “I believe a lot in energies, and I feel that everyone’s energies synced in Masaan . They always say you have to give a lot to the character, but I feel like Deepak gave me a lot in that film.”
In Bollywood, there is a tendency to get typecast. After Masaan , Kaushal got eight offers in the role of a UP boy. “People would be amazed that I’ve grown up in Bombay and not Banaras,” he says. He chose to wait seven-eight months to sign his next film, but the decision proved to be worth it. He next dove headlong into a character as far from Deepak and himself as possible, as the corrupt and violent cokehead cop in Kashyap’s psychological thriller Raman Raghav 2.0 . The proverbial good boy of Masaan was seen snorting cocaine (corn powder and Glucon D) every day during the shoot.
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Given the range of roles he has essayed so far, Kaushal says he wants to enjoy his journey as an actor. “I don’t take very calculated decisions, I just follow my heart. Every film has its own destiny, you never know for sure what will work and what won’t. The happiest place for me is a film set, and working with Karan Johar, Meghna Gulzar, Anand Tiwari, Anurag Kashyap and Rajkumar Hirani has been the experience of a lifetime.”
Doing theatre with the likes of Naseeruddin Shah and Manav Kaul has helped him hone his acting chops further. “One rule which applies to every role is that you have to surrender yourself to the director with an empty slate. You have to come on board every film knowing nothing as an actor; you go there with an empty cup and fill it with the vision of the director. Only after that do you start figuring out what your character is, how he talks, how he walks, what his mannerisms are, what his dialect is etc. Only then can you graph his emotional journey.”
The highly-anticipated trailer for Sanju was launched recently amidst much fanfare. Due to release on June 29, it features Hirani’s trademark LCD (“laugh, cry, drama”) formula, and is touted to become the summer’s blockbuster hit. For Kaushal, working on Sanju has been a dream come true, and he fanboys over the high profile names involved in it. “Raju Sir (Hirani) and Ranbir Kapoor are my favourite director and actor... I used to pinch myself on set to make sure that I was really here with these guys.”
His role in Sanju remained shrouded in mystery, and the buzz was that he was playing the character of Kumar Gaurav, Dutt’s brother-in-law. But Kaushal finally reveals that his character is based on a US-based man called Paresh, one of Dutt’s close friends since the time of Rocky , but who is also an amalgamation of a few of his other closest friends.
Later this year, Kaushal will be seen in another Netflix Original, the much-hyped anthology Lust Stories , where he stars in Johar’s segment, alongside Kiara Advani and Neha Dhupia. “I love Karan sir, he’s so much fun. The energy on his set is just infectious,” he says, adding this would be his wackiest character till date, in the anthology’s sole comedy segment. Industry insiders say Johar has become quite fond of the young actor, having reportedly taken him under his wing at Dharma. According to recent reports, Kaushal has signed another Dharma film by debutant director Bhanu Pratap Singh, a horror flick that will go into production later this year.
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With his role in Manmarziyaan (also starring Taapsee Pannu and Abhishek Bachchan), Kaushal reunites with Kashyap. “It’s a love triangle drama, and the inner Punjabi in me had so much fun during the shooting of the film. We shot for two months continuously in Amritsar and Kashmir. It will now release in September,” he informs.
Kashyap believes the film made the actor really open up and come into his own. “I have made him dance in Manmarziyaan and really use his physicality.” He adds that many people told Kaushal that he was definitely not “lead material — but just look at how he’s stuck to his guns and become the hero now.”
Ronnie Screwvala, another Bollywood heavyweight, seems to be in agreement, casting Kaushal as the lead in his next production, Uri , which will see the actor take off to Serbia for two months for the shoot. Based on the militant attack on security forces at Uri, in Jammu & Kashmir, and the surgical strikes that followed in 2016, the film will have Kaushal playing a Special Force Indian Commando leading the strikes. “I am very excited as it’s my first out-and-out action film,” he says. His preparation for the role includes extensive military training. “The last four-five months have been gruelling, I’ve had to bulk up a bit. It’s a rigorous five hours of physical training every single day.” He has gained 10 kilos and needs four more before shooting starts in the first week of June.
The Raazi star is quick to stress that Uri is not a jingoistic anti-Pakistan anthem. “Surgical strikes are a political decision, it’s a strategic plan and the film is focused on that strategy.” But like Raazi , this film too extols the values of patriotism and serving one’s country. Kaushal’s idea of patriotism is simple and no-frills, much like he himself appears to be. “Patriotism is like spirituality for me, I need to feel it and I need to be honest about it. But I don’t have to prove it to anybody; it’s a personal feeling. Woh kya kehte hai na , desh kisse banta hai ? Desh ke logon se bannta hai (Like they say, it is the people who make a country what it is).”
Kaushal’s brother Sunny is an actor too, and he will appear alongside Akshay Kumar in Reema Kagti’s hockey epic Gold , as well as Kabir Khan’s web series for Amazon Prime. If not acting, Kaushal insists, he’d still be on a film set, in one way or another. His parents had entirely different aspirations for him. They were happy he was studying engineering, hoping he’d settle abroad and they could follow him there. “My grandpa had a small kirane ki dukaan (grocery store) in Punjab, and my dad spent his entire youth struggling to settle down in Bombay. My parents have been craving this normal life for years. Having your weekends off, holidays for Holi-Diwali, work-life balance, monthly pay-cheque and secure future — and then their son comes home one day and says, I want to be an actor.”
Maybe Kaushal wasn’t meant for that comfortable middle-class life. Maybe he was meant for greater things. It certainly appears so.
Ritika Bhatia is a freelance journalist and a film consultant based in Mumbai