Anupam Kher, who essays the role of Dr Manmohan Singh, in The Accidental Prime Minister, feels that like a lot of other people, the erstwhile PM must also be apprehensive about how he will be portrayed in the film. “I did not want to meet him because I’d rather study him from the material that is there, otherwise, I would’ve thought unhone chai aise pee thi, haath aise hilaya tha’, and I will try to incorporate that. People have also played Mahatma Gandhi without meeting him and they did a brilliant job,” reasons the actor.
Having always been an ardent admirer of India’s current PM, Narendra Modi, did his political ideologies ever come in conflict with his on-screen role? “I’m a professional actor and I don’t bring my personal viewpoints to work.
Otherwise, I would not have been able to do so many roles. I admire Mr Modi, but that does not mean I don’t like Dr Singh,” he states.
One thing that the Padma Shri recipient believes he can say for sure, is that the economist will be immortalised after this film “in a good way”. “Dr Singh was India’s Prime Minister for 10 years and everybody knows him. It makes my job extremely difficult as an artiste, but that’s the joy of it,” he says. Anupam is confident that after watching the movie, the politician would want to meet him. “And thank me for portraying him so brilliantly,” he smiles, adding that he is saying all of this in humility. “The journey of me portraying him has also, strangely, brought me closer to him, because when you’re studying the person so much, you discover many things. I had to internalise the character,” says the 63-year-old, who’s currently stationed in New York to shoot for the medical drama, New Amsterdam.
