Siddhanth Kapoor is not only a doting older brother to his younger sister, Shraddha Kapoor in real life but also plays the same on screen in the film, Haseena Parkar that released recently. Siddhanth who plays Haseena’s older brother Dawood Ibrahim in the film, spoke to HFT about playing the character, his relationship with his father and his sister and more.
Playing Dawood
Many actors have played Dawood Ibrahim before and the latest one to join the gang was Siddhanth. So we asked him how he prepared to play the character as he’s playing someone much older than his age. Siddhant says that he didn’t watch any of the earlier films to prepare for the character as he but he did a lot of workshops, research and read a lot of books. “ I did a lot of reading even though am not much of a reader, I read Dongri to Dubai in detail. No one has played him as an 18-year-old before. This film starts with him as an 18-year-old, something that was not done before so it was easier. But since some actors have played the older Dawood earlier, It was difficult for me to play him when he was older and match up to that, but once I got into the character with the costumes, the prosthetics etc. it became easier,” he says. He also went to Nagpada during Eid to see what the atmosphere was like and watched some Hollywood gangster films. Also the fact that he has a lot of friends who speak in the typical Bombaiya tapori language helped.
Working with his sister
Siddhnath’s face lights up with the mention of his sister and you can clearly see the special bond the two of them share together. He says he was very excited to work with Shraddha, and they never thought they’d get an opportunity like this so early in their career. “I don’ think siblings get this opportunity to play reel siblings so it was fun. I was cast for the film 10 months before she was Shraddha came on board. We share a strong bond with each other. We were nautankis even when we little and we would mock act and our mom would pull out the camera and shoot our antics. It was very easy to work with her because of the bond we share,” he shares.
Challenges faced while playing Dawood
The most challenging part of playing Dawood Ibrahim for Siddhanth was that the shoot of the film first started with his older look, Dawood at 45 years of age and then his younger scenes were shot later. He says, “The first shot had all the prosthetics, lenses, bodysuit etc. so that was challenging. To get out and get into the character was challenging too,” he said.
Life as Shakti Kapoor’s son
Siddhanth says his father and he both didn’t believe it at first when Apoorva called him for the role., “My dad was like I know you will act but what about the look? How will you look that age? ” shares Siddhanth. Siddhant says he does go to his father for tips on acting and for this particular role he told him “Don’t overact like we did in the 70’s-80’s!” laughs Siddhnath. He feels that because he is Shakti Kapoor’s son, there are expectations and comparisons but he doesn’t let those things affect him much. Among all of his dad’s movies, Satte Pe Satta is his favorite.
Future Projects
He likes doing films with a lot of challenges, “I like challenges. And when it comes to performance, shades of grey has more scope so in that context, I do like playing the grey characters,” he informs. He also wants to do a comedy or a science fiction. And look forward to doing a comedy film with either Priyadarshan or David Dhawan His next film is called Paltan, directed by JP Dutta, where he plays a soldier.
HFT wishes him all the best.
