Veteran Actor Dilip Prabhavalkar at PIFF Forum

- Narrating a funny moment about P. L. Deshpande, Prabhavalkar said, In my younger days, I was very much influenced by great writer and one man show presenter P. L. Deshpande. His one man show ‘Batatyachi Chawl’ was wonderful. I watched it many times and presented an act from that show in our local Ganesh Festival. It was appreciated and I started getting offers to do the same. I got ready for it and started trying to look exactly like P. L. Deshpande did in that show. Then one of my neighbor advocate told me that Sunitabai (P.L. Deshpande’s wife) can drag you to the court for copying his act! I was so much frightened that I left acting for few months!

- P. L. Deshpande’s humor was literature. He had the power to spot anomalies in the situations.

- Despite of being an Actor, I’m a shy and non-extrovert person. But I always had an urge to express. That is the reason why I was working in all the three mediums like films, television and theatre and I also could write about 27 books.

- I feel that if the audience can connect with the actor’s innocence, then the humor becomes more convincing. I like to watch all kinds of humor like from ‘Mr. Prime Minister’ to the loud humor of ‘Mr. Bean’. But what I personally like to do is ‘Tongue in Cheek’ humor. In the new generation, the actor Bhau Kadam does that kind of humor.

- In last 5 years in Marathi films, many people are doing experiments. Directors like Paresh Mokashi are handling Black Humor. This kind of humor should be handled more and I would like to be a part of it.

- Today there is a huge impact of Hindi language on Marathi dialogues. It disturbs me sometimes. But as far as I can, I try to use Marathi language without mixing it.

- Some people try to remake the old plays and try to make changes in it as per modern times. When asked about this issue, Prabhavalkar said that the old plays should be presented as they were, until you can match the level of creativity. On same note, when he was asked about cinematic liberty taken in period films, He said that the cinematic liberty should be based on the events in history. Presenting a complete fantasy with just keeping names of the characters same, is not right. He also added that such issue of cinematic liberty did not arise about ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, as Mahatma Gandhi shown in that movie was fantasy of the character Munnabhai.

- Speaking about his role of Gandhi in the movie ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, Prabhavalkar said, I was actually called for the role of one of the old men in Second Innings Home in the movie. But when I reached there, Director Raju Hirani told me to audition for Gandhi. I was chosen because Vidhu Vinod Chopra found my ‘Child Like’ smile very convincing! I was damn scared with insecurity before the first shot. But when Actor Boman Irani saw me in Gandhi’s getup, he expressed that the transformation is frightening! It gave me confidence. This role was a difficult task.

- Making biopics is a difficult task and needs a lot of efforts. You need to make research just like Richard Attenborough did for making the movie ‘Gandhi’.

For more Bollywood updates, follow Bollyy!

Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Dilip Prabhavalkar