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EXCLUSIVE! One Cut Two Cut Actor Danish Sait Gets Candid About His Character Gopi; Says It Was Challenging
Humble Politician Nograj famed Danish Sait is riding high on the success of his latest release One Cut Two Cut, exclusively streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The film follows an art and craft teacher Gopi, who finds himself in a soup when the school is held hostage by a group of four members. The film has surely won the hearts of the audiences, who can't stop gushing over its concept and of course the actor's quirky avatar.
During his exclusive tête-à-tête with Filmibeat, Danish Sait at his candid best reflected on his role, efforts made to pull off the witty character and his collaboration with the late Kannada actor Puneeth Rajkumar's production company PRK Productions. He also reminisces how they watched One Cut Two Cut together before fate had other plans for the Power Star.
Excerpts from the interaction.
You have performed a lot of comic and goofy characters for your shows all along. Playing Gopi Sir must have been a cakewalk for you.
Actually no, because this is far more understated in terms of what the character is and how he performs. Say for example Nograj or whatever else I have done, they are usually over the top characters. I mean they are literally taking a small idea and making it super large. Over here the idea was large, but the character was played very subtly. So I think this was a lot more challenging for me, but I did have a lot of fun working on Gopi. I had a great time doing this.
Tell us what efforts were made to pull off the character?
It goes down to things like body language, the tone, the pace or the excitement. It's a lot of things that change. For Nograj, who was in the series that I recently did, that guy is loud and boisterous, while Gopi is a simpleton. He is really nice and extremely affable. If I told you, you need to behave a certain way, it would be difficult for any human being to just be likeable. So I had to be likeful and it is very hard to play. But that's the challenge about playing a character like this. I am so glad that director Vamsi eased me through this process.
For an artist, there is always an unconscious tendency of repeating the traits of a character they have played previously. As you have portrayed a lot of comic characters in the past, did you also go through such instances?
Absolutely yes! That's a lovely question. Yes of course I did. That's exactly why you need to have a director who kind of rips it out of you saying 'I have seen you doing this somewhere else so do not do it here'. Then you respect the director and give him another take on that. That's a beautiful question you asked. It happens. There are times when I end up saying a line that resembles some other character, and especially for somebody like me who is living with some ten characters in my head, it is always kind of busy up there. It helps to have a director around who is watching your back and he is watching out for the film most importantly.
In most cases, the comic character playing the lead would either have an emotional or horrifying past. Does Gopi also have such a layer to his character?
Yeah, he does! The poor guy has been finding someone to marry him, but nobody is marrying him. You will see when you watch the film that his mum is no more. So you are laughing with him and not at him and that's the difference. It is a kind of comedy in tragedy.
One Cut Two Cut is the first film from Puneeth Rajkumar's production house PRK Productions to release this year. In fact, the cluster release is a tribute to the legend and therefore there are so many expectations among film buffs. What's the feeling like?
To begin with, Puneeth Rajkumar was one of the most incredible human beings I've met or I've ever interacted with. To even be a part of a film produced by him is an absolute privilege and I am extremely grateful to him, his wife Ashwiny ma'am and their team at PRK Productions. Something like this as an opportunity itself is huge, and to be a part of the cluster and be the first ones to come out there. To be honest with you, when a movie is released, people say good, people say bad, people say this could have been better, that could have been better, they enjoyed it they didn't enjoy it. That's one aspect of films. But when you look at the moment, it's not just a monumental loss to the film industry, but also to the world, because Puneeth Rajkumar was that kind of a person.
It's been a couple of very difficult days to know that, you know we saw this film together not too long ago and then for him to suddenly not be here, it's too much of disbelief. It's a sheer sort of disbelief to say I can't believe he is no more. I think I need to cope with that before I can let the pressure get to me. The movie is what it is. There is nothing that I can change. People will watch it or not accept it for what it is, but the loss of Mr Puneeth Rajkumar hurts a lot and I am just grateful to him for the opportunity.
Can you share with us about your other upcoming projects?
I will go back to Cricket after this. We are writing another film, between Vamsi and me, we are discussing another season of my series. We will keep making more films. Work continuously. Before I take anything else, I think cricket and some quality time with my family.
