Pankaj Tripathi has reprised his role as Kaleen Bhaiya in the third season of Amazon Prime’s much-loved web series, Mirzapur. In an exclusive conversation with News18 Showsha, the National Award-winning actor opened up about why he agreed to play Kaleen Bhaiya, the now-iconic character, back when he was first approached in 2018 and why box office numbers don’t bother him.
Talking about the character, Pankaj Tripathi explained that Kaleen Bhaiya is not like the traditional dons usually portrayed on screen. “He’s not hungry for power or aggressive,” Tripathi said. “If you set aside his profession, he’s actually a very decent guy. I have made him relatable to the audience.” He said that he took the role as an opportunity to show that a don can be very different from what we have seen on the big screen over the years.
“If you notice, you will see that Kaleen Bhaiya is actually quite graceful. I’ve made the character that way. He talks to everyone with a lot of respect, except his wife. Par wahi toh charitra hai na samaaj ka (isn’t that the reality of society?)” he added.
Tripathi is also known for his relatable personality both on and off the screen. Opening up about this, he said, “In films, we are just actors. But in real life, we are both the actor and the director. If we misdirect, we will become someone else. Relatability is extremely important to connect an actor with the audience, but it has to be organic and that’s where craft comes into play.”
To drive home the point, he recalled an incident from Hindu College in Delhi, where he had gone for a cultural event. He said, “There was this girl who spoke to me and said, ‘Aap aise lagte ho ke mere chacha ho.’ I smiled and said, ‘Main toh tumse pehli baar mil raha hoon aaj. Phir chacha kaise lagta hoon? (We have just met today. How do I seem like your uncle?)’ But I realized it’s through my characters that are extremely relatable.”
He also said that it is important to have a bit of uniqueness in that relatability. He continued, “If people think they have seen such a relatable character around themselves and deem it boring, they will not be interested in seeing them on the big screen. Log sochenge aise toh bahut dekhe hain jeevan mein, isi ko parde pe kya dekhna?”
Pankaj Tripathi’s last film, Main Atal Hoon, a biopic on Atal Bihari Vajpayee, did not perform well at the box office. When asked if box office failures disappoint him, he said, without pinpointing any of his films, “Not at all. If I know that I’ve given my 100 percent during the shoot and stayed true to my craft, why should I feel bad about it? I understand the box office business. Fortunately, all the films I have done, whether or not they were box office successes, have managed to return money to the producers. I know the math.”
Pankaj Tripathi will next be seen in Stree 2.
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