Aditya Kripalani shoots I’m Not an Actor with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Mumbai and Frankfurt simultaneously

I’m Not an Actor (Main Actor Nahin Hoon) director Aditya Kripalani shoots the Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer in Mumbai and Frankfurt simultaneously, in keeping with the story playing out in the two cities

We’re bemused when Aditya Kripalani says Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a banker-turned-bad actor in his next, Main Actor Nahin Hoon (I’m Not an Actor). How do you make Siddiqui act badly, is the first question that enters our mind. “He is such a brilliant actor that when he has to act badly as part of a film, he knows how to be pitch perfect at that as well,” laughs the director, before adding, “Usually bad acting is simply loud acting. When you think of a bad actor, you won’t think of Nawaz bhai in a million years. We wanted that shock value.” 

Aditya Kripalani

I’m Not an Actor, also starring Chitrangada Satarupa and Naveen Kasturia, revolves around Siddiqui’s Frankfurt-based character, who, upon retirement, pursues his love for acting. At an audition, he comes across an actor from the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII). The film follows the protagonist as he, over phone and video calls, does acting workshops with the FTII graduate. With the movie set in Frankfurt and Mumbai, the director shot it in the two cities simultaneously over 36 days. While Kripalani led a team of 40 in the German city, he supervised chief assistant director Anubhav Jain and another crew that filmed the Mumbai portions. “It’s a unique way of shooting. For instance, if Nawaz’s character is taking a tram in Frankfurt, Chitrangada’s character would be taking a train at the same time in Mumbai. For the next 14 minutes, we’d shoot it across the two locations in sync,” explains the director. What made him adopt this approach? He reasons, “We wanted the performances to be authentic and on point. You can shoot the portions separately. But here, the conversations, when synced, felt like an extension of a fresh equation that started virtually.”

The director plans to tour with I’m Not an Actor for the next six months, beginning with its première at the Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in California in March. At a time when OTT platforms are being careful of acquiring films, he believes having Siddiqui as an actor-co-producer will be a big push. “Nawaz bhai is the face of OTT. He really pushes good stories and smaller films. I feel middle-of-the-road cinema is alive only because of actors like Manoj Bajpayee and him. Everyone else is either too mainstream or too indie.”

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