Shubhra Gupta’s ‘Irrfan: A Life in Movies’ celebrates the rare star

Surbhi Goel

IRRFAN KHAN was one of a small group of actors who arrived in television/cinema via the National School of Drama to resist ‘derivative acting’ styles. He strived for authenticity, awareness, understanding and chiselled his craft on his own terms. As far back as 2003, in ‘Road to Ladakh’ (directed by Ashvin Kumar), Irrfan was intense, mysterious and enigmatic, even in the short film. It was almost luxurious to see an actor so comfortable in his character, animating every second of his screen time. He was a performer who did a good stint in television, but he was meant for the big screen for the larger canvas of story-telling, for fullscape cinema. For, only in the feature length could he begin to unpack his skills, lay out his abilities to inhabit and live through the character, letting the cinematograph record the moods and changes in his body movement, allowing the audience to dive deep in his undulating eyes. ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, ‘The Lunchbox’, ‘The Namesake’, ‘Maqbool’, ‘Talvar’, ‘Piku’ and ‘Hindi Medium’ are some of the abiding examples of his talent, versatility and wide-spectrum acting. How he managed to do it all, is what the conversations in ‘Irrfan: A Life in Movies’ give us a glimpse into.

This is a commemorative book, recording and sifting through multiple conversations that the author Shubhra Gupta has had with several associates of Irrfan Khan directors, co-actors, personal friends and admirers, who recall their collaborations, friendship, experiences, memories, emotions, affiliations and connections with the consummate actor, the beloved person that Irrfan has been for each one of these 33 individuals.

A flow of organic conversations, with only a few probing questions, helps in the revelation of tender details of the cinematic processes that the directors shared with the late actor. Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Bhardwaj, Mira Nair and Sudhir Mishra offer deep insights into the vulnerabilities of the intense actor, who, as Mishra so incisively states, had an ambiguity and uncertainty playing on his face. Like a sponge, Irrfan absorbed from his environs, for he understood that minds and their milieu were all one phenomena, which made his performances attractive, consummate and entertaining.

In a heartfelt recollection, Anup Singh cites how he convinced Irrfan for the lead role in ‘Qissa’ by exemplifying how even a contorted face of a singer while deep into his art, such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (whose singing they bonded over), still produced a beautiful voice. Tanuja Chandra, who directed him in ‘Qarib Qarib Singlle’ (2017), describes her true discovery of Irrfan, the actor, at the editing table, where she found dynamism in his performance. Almost poetically, the film shots grew incrementally; the more she viewed them, the more meaningful they became. Vishal Bhardwaj explains the ‘Irrfanian phenomenon’ as Irrfan’s continuous exploration for stories. The freshness in every approach, character, line and mannerism was his forte, he writes. Ritesh Batra chips in about how Irrfan understood the inner world of the character and set the very pace of ‘The Lunchbox’. In flashbacks, each of the directors in the book contributes in recreating the actor, the performer. That he worked with such a spectrum of directors in India is astonishing.

A nudge here and there by Shubhra Gupta helps the co-actors reconstruct their assessment of the craft and methods deployed by Irrfan Khan. Naseeruddin Shah, Rasika Duggal, Tillotama Shome and Pankaj Tripathi wax eloquent about him. Shah recalls how Irrfan’s acting was so real that he got fooled by it during the shooting of ‘Maqbool’.

During a conversation, Cameron Bailey, currently helming the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), assesses Irrfan’s singular on-screen and off-screen presence and recalls his precise and sharp acting techniques with a special ability to convey a rich interior life on-screen. And, Bailey is spot-on. Irrfan Khan has been able to carve out a rare singular career as well. The capacity of Irrfan Khan in creating a truly international interest in his work, while he worked with directors such as Ang Lee, Danny Boyle, Wes Anderson, Marc Webb, Ron Howard, Marc Turtlelaub and Asif Kapadia, is singular.

From 1988 to 2021, he enthralled his audiences and is remembered by them, across ages.

This unique talent, to hold the audience in thrall, is a stellar quality. It carries its own luminosity and legacy.