Irrfan Khan, a director’s delight

Nonika Singh

Tributes are still pouring in. Epitaphs are still being penned, one of the most moving and revealing by none other than Sutapa Sikdar, Irrfan Khan’s wife. But then actors like Irrfan come rare, like those shooting stars, only once in a while. While his demise is being mourned as a personal loss by so many people, even by those who knew him only through the characters he essayed, we wonder what the magic of Irrfan Khan was like for his directors. Was he a director’s actor, a method actor or far more enigmatic? What made him ‘shine the brightest in the universe’, as Homi Adajania, the director of his swansong, Angrezi Medium, wrote in an Instagram post.

Saket Chaudhary, whose film Hindi Medium would go down as Irrfan’s first superhit in mainstream cinema, shares, “There certainly was a method to his acting, but way beyond the standard notion of a method actor. He would understand the director’s vision but give it an interpretation that would enhance the vision.”

Sudhir Mishra, who directed him in Yeh Saali Zindagi and in an Amazon Prime series, Gormint, which Irrfan had to drop out of because of ill health, calls him a co-writer. He shares how Irrfan would often give suggestions that would tempt directors to turn around the whole scene on its head. Mishra adds, “He was so damn good that he would challenge you in the most inspiring and creative way.”

In Tanuja Chandra’s Qarib Qarib Singlle, a love story, Irrfan became one with the rather oddball character of Yogi, seeking a partner on a dating site. According to Chandra, his biggest strength as an actor was his ability to connect deeply with his character, to look into its soul. “That’s precisely why he could look so natural, unique yet real, not larger than life but believable, adorable with frailties, silliness, humanity and sweetness intact.” Even though both Chaudhary and Chandra cast him in avatars he was not best known for – one comic and the other romantic — there was no ambiguity or doubt in their minds. Chaudhary had seen his charm and comic timing in Shoojit Sircar’s Piku and Anurag Basu’s Life in a Metro. His serious image, he feels, became the biggest asset in a comedy. In Anees Bazmee’s masala entertainer Thank You, Irrfan’s presence, seeming more like an anachronism, may have rankled his fans but he was a natural on the commercial turf too. Bazmee says, “A brilliant actor can break and fit into any mould.”

The acknowledgement of his brilliance is not an afterthought or an epithet affixed to him after his demise. “We always knew that, it was first Tigmanshu Dhulia and later Vishal Bhardwaj who introduced us to his brilliance,” says Mishra. “With him around, one could focus on the bigger picture. He facilitated story-telling, let it flow.” Chaudhary puts it succinctly, “He did not just act, he created.”

While writing the character of Raj Batra in Hindi Medium, Chaudhary didn’t have Irrfan in mind initially. But soon after he etched the opening sequence of this charming ‘fake’ boutique owner of Chandni Chowk, he knew it had to be Irrfan. For Chandra, Yogi was Irrfan and vice-versa right from the start. As she and her co-writer Gazal Dhaliwal began sketching the character of a staunch feminist, a kind and loving person, she knew no one else would fit the bill.

For directors, how Irrfan loved to discuss the story and characters was also a source of delight. “He liked being spontaneous. Retakes, he feared, would make him monotonous,” Chandra says. Bazmee recalls how once a dialogue and a scene he had penned wasn’t sounding funny enough, but Irrfan, with his wide-eyed innocence, delivered it with panache. Chaudhary recalls how he had decided to edit out one scene which had some dialogues but very little action. He reminisces: “Irrfan enacted the sequence with the emotions in his eyes mirroring the guilt and emotional turmoil. As a director, even I could not have envisioned it.”

Among his strengths, Chaudhary believes, was his ability to catch an interesting thing about a character and elaborate it through his performance. Besides, he could distil every experience of his life into acting. Is that what made him the actor he was? “He thought of the film as a whole, not just his own part or character. Besides, he had huge regard for every artiste, not merely his co-stars,” says Mishra.

Director of Revolver Rani, Sai Kabir, remembers him as a philosopher, a Zen master, mysterious yet simple. Kabir’s dream project, Divine Lovers with Irrfan, an Indo-French production, may have fallen through, but the director’s awe and admiration for him and his craft is intact. “An actor who knew how to prepare, yet never let it show,” says Kabir. Mishra, who shot a few scenes of Gormint with Irrfan, was awestruck by how he got into the skin of the character of a has-been Punjabi star without caricaturing it one bit. Yet, Irrfan was aware of his limitations. Mishra says, “He had this amazing ability to look at himself from the outside and evolve.” Anup Singh, who made the brilliant Qissa and The Song of Scorpions with him, called him ‘a sum of thousand suns’.

Clearly, his relationship with his directors was one of mutual inspiration. As Sam Mendes says, “I want to inspire and be inspired.”