Awards are important, but I can live without them, says Vijay Varma

He’s made a mark globally now. Vijay Varma, actor extraordinaire, was recently nominated twice at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in the Best Supporting Actor categories for the film Darlings and the web series Dahaad. He clinched the award for the latter, in which he played a psychopathic killer.

Vijay found Dahaad way more challenging, though he enjoyed his quirky, witty character in Darlings. “With Dahaad, I did not know to pitch this character. The idea was to not make him look evil and make it appear that it was his everyday nature. No villain thinks he is one! I would sit on the monitor to see what I had shot, and I had endless discussions with the director on what to do, and what not to do. As an actor, I create an illusion, just like a magician.”

Does all that villainy disturb the person he is? “Not at all!” he chuckles. “I sleep pretty well at night! When I finish work, I talk to friends, or my mother, and like to be treated normally and not like how I am treated on set like an actor or a colleague. I have done dark characters before, especially on stage and also in a short film, and have learnt not to carry my character home.”

The consummate young actor comes across as a remarkably grounded human being, having seen both the brickbats that life can offer as well as the bouquets coming his way today. 

It’s been 15 years since he first appeared — in the short Shor, and 11 since Chittagong, his feature film debut. He was noticed as one of the molesters in ‘Pink’ (2016) and as the villain in the Telugu Middle-Class Abbayi (2017), but his first tryst with lasting fame came with Gully Boy (2018) with his gray essay of Moin, the main protagonists’ friend. Nominated as Best Supporting Actor, he did not win, so we ask his views on awards, especially now after his first trophy.

“Awards are important, and I feel good about receiving them, but I can live without them!” Vijay says decisively. The actor was doing local theatre in his hometown, Hyderabad, and wanted to formally learn acting, so he left home to join the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII). “I am in love with my profession, and I have this insatiable appetite for learning even now.”

Quite happy with his lot, he is keen on experimenting and is happy that times have changed from the era when actors were slotted in genres like comedy, villainy and so forth. “Our cinema has changed for the better!” he opines. “There is a lot of work done on characters today, and if you think I am versatile, it is a lot because of my writers and directors. I agree that gray (Gully Boy) and negative (Darlings, Dahaad, and Lust Stories 2) roles have brought me fame, but I am happy that I am doing some positive roles now, like in Kalakoot.”

Vijay calls cinema an artform and states that even commercial aspects come in because of its foundation in art. Citing such wide cinematic influences as Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Shyam Benegal and Prakash Mehra, he says that he loves doing new characters all the time. 

How then does he look at repeating himself with Mirzapur 3? “The familiarity with my character makes things easy. Yes, my thinking brain forgets what I did then, but my body and soul have a memory within.”

He calls himself a “director’s actor”, so does he contribute to his characters in any way? He admits that work can be sometimes collaborative. So would he like to do a Rohit Shetty comedy? “Why not?” he asks. “But he too should see me in that light and I have to be convinced about the role.”