Kathak looks easy, but it’s actually one of the hardest disciplines to master. You have to convey a range of emotions with minimalist fare. Now, Tota Roy Chowdhury isn’t considered a chocolate boy in the Bengali industry. He’s somewhat of a macho hero who has been a martial arts aficionado since his childhood. He’s the latest Feluda to grace the screen—the brooding detective written by Ray, known for his leaps of intuition and also for the physical dexterity he displays. So it must have been hard for Tota, whose actual name is Pushparag Roy Chowdhury, to draw in on his feminine side. He was able to do so efficiently and win the hearts of the audience. His performance lent a certain gravitas to the film. Excerpts from a tete-a-tete with the consummate actor who likes to downplay his achievements…
Fans are calling you the scene-stealer because of your elaborate dance sequence with Ranveer Singh in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani…
All the characters have been designed in such a way that they all have redemption. They all have their high points with their own scenes where they can put across their views. So for me, it’s more important that we succeed as a team under Karan sir. That was the whole idea. So if I’m being a scene stealer it is because of the way my character was written—it was unique and people loved the way it was portrayed. As an actor, I can’t go beyond the script. Coming back to your question, no, I don’t believe I’m the scene stealer, but I’m happy that somewhere people empathise with Chondon Chatterjee.
Karan Johar has talked a lot about your character being borrowed from his own childhood. So did he give personal cues to you to play the character?
Not once. Had he told me about it, then my natural acting tendency would have been to copy him or emulate him. He said this after the release of the film.
What was the preparation for the big Kathak scene like?
Gruelling. Because that was a precondition laid by Karan sir, he said that I need you to practice intensively. I don’t want you to cheat on the Kathak sequence. And also, in the back of my mind, it was playing that I would be dancing with Ranveer Singh. Which is no mean feat because he’s such a good dancer and he’s got such a good memory. I spent around five to six months practicing Kathak. Vaibhavi Merchant did the choreography and then sent Nikita to train me in Mumbai. She was instrumental in helping me pick up the nuances and steps. And in Kolkata, I took the basic course from Paramita Moitra, who’s quite renowned.
How was your experience working with industry stalwarts like Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, and others?
Starting with Karan sir- I’ve never met a nicer and kinder person in my entire life. He has crystal-clear vision. He knows exactly what he wants. He knows how much of it he wants, and he knows how to get it. The second point is that he has great empathy for his actors and his crew. I have never seen him angry. He is always calm. And thirdly, his supreme confidence in his brand of storytelling. He knows that this is the kind of cinema that I want people to see. What he practices is rapidly becoming a lost art, celebrating cinema in all its glory. He’s the last of the Titans. People want to see it. And the success of Rocky Aur Rani is proof enough. I’ve been so spoiled on his sets that I told him that the next time I work in some other production, I’ll be let down because you spoiled me so much. Alia is a very intelligent actor, and she’s got great instincts. She is in touch with her feelings. She knows the character inside and out; she does her homework. And she’s such an easy person to work with on sets. People are praising my performance, but it is important to note that it is because of my great and supportive co-stars. Ranveer is God’s own child. I think God created him on a Sunday. He’s so happy to be among people. He’s so happy to be appreciated. At my age, I have become a bit jaded, but with him, he brought back my belief in humanity. He’s hungry. He’s also a method actor. He follows the method set by Konstantin Stanislavsky. What he did was start with his body. Then he grew his hair. Then he brought in a certain kind of walk for Rocky. He got a dialect coach. He went to West Delhi and did his homework there. And he used to listen to Punjabi rap and Punjabi hip-hop throughout the day. After a while, we couldn’t discern between Rocky and Ranveer.
In the wedding scene, the mother of the bride is usually the one who gets her ready for her big day, but here you did all the preparations. How do you see that change playing out in your character and in society at large?
I think it was a very powerful statement by Karan sir. It is not didactic. It’s saying all the right things. But in a very subtle way.
You’ve seen your fair share of commercial films, art films, and TV shows; is there a specific medium you prefer?
Not really. For me, the camera is a camera and acting is acting. This is what I have maintained for all these years. Yes, there are people who think about the medium not in terms of their acting design but in terms of their career design. I’m not a very good actor to begin with, but I’m an honest and hardworking actor. This is something I can proudly proclaim. I think that because of my honesty and hard work, my audience has stayed with me. I am still relevant to them.
You’re one of the new faces of Feluda for this general generation. So how does that feel?
That, for me, is a career high. It was a dream, and I thank the stars for making it happen. I also thank Srijit Mukherjee for visualising me as Feluda. In fact, even before he came into the profession, I remember him as a lyricist. When the movie Tintorettor Jishu was released in 2008, he had just come to watch it. He wasn’t even a director then. He wasn’t even an assistant. What confidence he had—he just walked up to me and said that someday, when I make Feluda, I will cast you. And after 12 years, he did just that.
Was it hard to portray a character that has been done by so many big actors because they’ve set a certain standard?
Sabyasachi Chakraborty, who is famous for playing Feluda, is one of my favourite actors of all time, so I didn’t want to even think about matching up to him. Thankfully, the director and I belong to the same age group. So we visualised Feluda in a certain way. But, of course, I’m sure there are some purists out there. They will probably find fault with my portrayal. But, as an actor, I can’t please everybody. And neither can a director. So we did it the way we wanted to do it, and a lot of people, especially NRIs and people who lived outside the state, loved it.
How do you feel about so many Bengali actors right now being household names in OTT?
You have to be very efficient to survive in the Bengali film industry. That kind of efficiency is the order of the day, and we have some good, talented actors here. And Bengalis are naturally multilingual, so we can speak quite a few languages apart from Bengali, English, and Hindi. So yes, in the coming years, I am sure you will see a lot more Bengali actors doing OTT, as well as Hindi films.
With the constant inflow of content on OTT, is it hard to keep up or keep reinventing yourself?
I leave it up to the director. What I don’t try to do is be younger than my age. Because there’s a certain amount of journey that I have. My body has changed and my face has changed. My thought processes have changed. My acting has changed. I try to keep up with the times. I’ll just be myself. They see that change in me and try to incorporate those changes when they cast me. In today’s times of botox and fillers and, you know, keeping oneself as youthful as possible, I walk the opposite way. Looking young is important. But looking like your character is much more important than that. I let that journey define me.
What do you have in store for the future?
I have never planned my career because the few times that I have had it, nothing worked as planned, and when I let things happen, lovely things have happened. For example, I’d never planned to work with Karan sir. I thought that was a pipe dream. If anybody could have told me two years ago that you would be working in a Karan Johar film, I would have laughed in his face. But things happen because there’s this divine flow. You just have to float along.