Thursday 29 March 2012

Nana Patekar turns villain after 5 years

5 Years after his one-off award-winning stint as a corrupt kidnapper Bihari politician in Prakash Jha's Apaharan, Nana Patekar is back in black.

The diabolic politician in Apaharan was more for his friend and favourite collaborator Prakash Jha who needed to coax Nana to come again into the evil zone which at one time Nana had dominated with such resonant impact in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda and Shashilal Nair's Angaar.

Thereafter, Nana thinking about playing the lead in films Krantiveer and Tirangaa...In fact his next two releases It's My Life and Ab Tak Chappan 2 would feature Nana often lead.

Breaking his no-villainy rule, Nana plays an out-and-out negative character in Priyadarshan's Malaamal Weekly 2. Apparently, Nana agreed to wreck his anti-negativity rule as he had never tried the novel recipe of villainy in a comedy.

Says director Priyadarshan, "IT IS A challenge for Nana Patekar, and one who he's most able to shouldering. Everywhere around his character there's laughter. Nana has to stay a humourless villain."

Villain on screen, guardian angel off it. These are the 2 roles that Nana Patekar is effortlessly essaying at this moment in Wai, shooting for Priyadarshan's new comedy a few loser (Shreyas Talpade) who pretends proximity to a sinister stranger within the village (Nana Patekar) to win some badly-needed respect within the village. The 'stranger' seems to be notorious charge-sheeter.

On location in Wai, Nana has become everyone's local guardian. He insists on cooking for all of the unit each day.

Says Priyadarshan gleefully, "Nana plays a whole anti-social element. He's gone into the nature with such enthusiasm; he's essentially the most committed actor I've worked with since Mohanlal. Everyone warned me Nana was difficult to work with. But he turned out to be the very best actor I've worked with. He takes care of we all. I DID NOT know he was the sort of fantastic cook. I'd like to cast him in a chef's role in my next comedy."