Pankaj Tripathi calls out Hindi films for promoting chest-thumping masculinity, says 'alpha male' needs to be woke | Interview
Here's the latest update from the Bollywood world:
Pankaj Tripathi is in his romantic hero era. The star is turning over a new leaf with Parivarik Manuranjan, a romantic comedy opposite Aditi Rao Hydari . The movie, which rolled out on SonyLiv today (November 13), sees Pankaj play a small-town loner with a difference. In a conversation with Hindustan Times, the National Award-winning star spoke about the movie, doing ‘ordinary’ films and how cinema has changed the definition of alpha male.
Adding to this, Pankaj Tripathi talks about his new movie Parivarik Manuranjan. ‘Nobody wants to make an ordinary story’ Pankaj says he decided to do the movie immediately after reading the script. “I received the script at night, read it at night, and called them (the makers) first thing in the morning saying I’m doing it, because I had no doubts about it,” he tells us.
Meanwhile, Talking about what compelled him to sign the movie, he adds, “I felt it's the kind of story I think about—very close to real life, slice-of-life—and without any gimmicks or screenplay show-offs trying to shock the audience. It’s simple, ordinary storytelling. I call it ordinary because nobody wants to make an ordinary story nowadays; everyone wants to make something extraordinary.”
Notably, The star says that the entry of gimmicks into storytelling has made such simple films rarer today. “It's not that simple films don't come at all now, but they come very rarely. They don't get marketed well, and they are very rare because the medium of storytelling has changed. Gimmicks have entered; everyone wants shock value,” he argues.
As per the latest buzz, In Parivarik Manuranjan, Pankaj plays Ranjan Dubey, a middle-aged bachelor whose life transforms for the better when a beautiful housekeeper enters it. The romantic comedy explores their unconventional love story. Pankaj says that he likes his character, but portraying him posed a rather unusual challenge.
In further updates, “The way Ranjan Dubey reacts, his thoughts match mine. I think the same way. I thought, great, I don't have to act in this! Now, our thoughts are aligning. But in fact, that becomes even more risky. When you have to act like who you already are, it makes you anxious. Because that doesn't usually happen in the world. People keep what they really are hidden inside. So when a character matches your own thoughts, delivering it becomes even more challenging,” the veteran star says.
On top of that, The movie marks a rare occasion when the 50-year-old is romancing on screen. But he shared he never aspired to be a ‘romantic hero’. He explains, “No, I didn't have a craving to become a typical romantic hero. The romance in this movie is of a different kind, not like traditional films. It's not the over-the-top romance we usually see in cinema.”
The movie’s trailer features a line of dialogue that has intrigued audiences: Pankaj’s character says he has had enough of being the beta, and now it’s time to be alpha. The line, in Hindi, includes wordplay on the word beta (son) and also takes a dig at the alpha-male stereotype in mainstream Hindi cinema. Talking about his idea of an alpha male, the star says it has to be ‘someone who is a leader, without chest-thumping masculinity’.
Source: Hindustan Times