In a profession, where stardom is a destination, and narcissism an essential virtue, Nawazuddin Siddiqui would seem to be a misfit. He struggled for about a decade trying to get a break and today he appears gratified, but not unsettled by success.
After the success of “Kick”, he has been getting several offers for similar villainous roles, but has rejected all of them, keeping a promise to himself that he would not do more than one commercial film a year. “I knew I would get offers to play the villain after ‘Kick’, and I had already decided to reject all of them,” he said, adding, “Fortunately, I have enough scripts to give me a choice. The success of ‘Kick’ will help in the marketing of other small budget independent films I have acted in. A big blockbuster like ‘Kick’ expands the audience for my films and makes it easier to promote them.”
For an actor who has made his mark by playing an arrogant Intelligence Bureau officer in “Kahani” and the villain with the heinous laugh in the recent blockbuster “Kick”, one would expect Nawazuddin Siddiqui to project a larger than life image, or at least an air of entitlement that stars of lesser talent effortlessly. Instead, he explains for the benefit of an audience at Chicago’s Icon Theater, he is nervous, being ill at ease on a public stage.
“It is my instinct to act that has brought me this far. It would be foolish of me to kill that instinct now by focusing on other activities like image building and starry tantrums.” He said he is still ill at ease promoting his films at media events, but does it nevertheless because his directors want him to.”
Siddiqui is supremely confident that he can thrive purely on small budget independent films. “I have limited needs. If you have unlimited desires, of course, then you have a problem.”
