The titular character in Hansal Mehta라이브 바카라 Faraaz (2023) doesn’t truly show up on screen till the final 20 minutes of its efficient 112-minute runtime. In an industry where grandstanding is the norm, this was a brave choice—especially for an actor, who is trying to prove his mettle in his first film. Zahan Kapoor, grandson of Shashi Kapoor, didn’t quite get the launch like some of his cousins did. He lurked on our screens. What truly surprised me about Mehta라이브 바카라 film is the manner in which he depicts a young boy라이브 바카라 coming-of-age, boiling it down to a choice. At a time when the youth are being misled in all directions, it was refreshing to see someone reflect the idealism of youth—making it aspirational without appearing inorganic. “Only after going through the filming process did I understand it was all building up to this very undervalued conviction—it라이브 바카라 not the flashy thing,” says Kapoor in a video call with 바카라.
Zahan Kapoor라이브 바카라 phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the last three months, since the release of Black Warrant (2025), where he played Sunil Kumar Gupta, one of the jailers of Tihar in the early 1980s. After the muted response that Kapoor got for his debut film, it was Vikramaditya Motwane라이브 바카라 show that proved to be ‘star-making’ as per industry parlance. The show makes spectacular use of Kapoor라이브 바카라 diminutive frame to tell an underdog story. Kapoor showed his flourishes as an actor too, navigating the difficult path of invoking a consistent 1980s English dialect, in the way he says “Maine Laa ki padhayi ki hai” (I’ve studied Law). It라이브 바카라 the kind of confident, high-wire act that one rarely sees from a young actor in contemporary Bollywood.
Not someone who fits the generic mould of the Bollywood ‘hero’, Kapoor has been deliberating over his next move for nearly a year now. He라이브 바카라 anxious about making the ‘right’ choice in the follow-up to all the appreciation. He realises how rare such unanimous praise is. So, he라이브 바카라 trying to savour it, while also cautiously bracing himself for when the bouquets will stop.
Talking about his decade-long gestating period before his Bollywood debut and what it taught him about patience, his aversion to ‘manufactured relevance’, and how he라이브 바카라 mindful about the privileged position he라이브 바카라 in, Kapoor reveals his myriad reflections.
Edited excerpts:
I heard you say something very interesting in an interview—about how you know the reception of Black Warrant is rare. That라이브 바카라 a very wise thing to say for an actor starting out…
I think this wisdom is a mix of a lot of things. I’ve had the good fortune of observing people in my periphery, and I’ve seen enough to know this is not something to hold on to. Even the A-listers in my family—their dedication is their work. It라이브 바카라 not result-oriented, but process-oriented. I’m a relative newcomer, but I’ve been working full-time since 2010. I was more behind the production than in front of the camera. And then I’ve been training as an actor since 2012-13. I’m aware of how much work goes into an acting career, and how much harvest you end up doing. The reality check is not too far away. I know people who come from the outside, taste some success, and their primary concern becomes to hold on to this relevance. The grace comes from knowing you can’t hold on to it—you can only gratefully accept it and let it pass through you.
One of the first pieces of advice I got after Black Warrant라이브 바카라 release was, “PR karaa lo. Ab bhi time hai, yeh nikal jaayega. I regret not doing it when I was in your position.” This is coming from a place of concern and I can be grateful for it. But I don’t necessarily have to act on someone else라이브 바카라 concern. Thankfully, even now that you’re calling three months after Black Warrant came out, I’m glad to admit that I’ve spent no money on PR. I’ve said if there is interest, I will engage with it honestly. I’m lucky it라이브 바카라 working for now.
Being in the proximity of a family who has seen extraordinary fame and also lost it, what라이브 바카라 a lesson you’ve learned and applied?
I have seen Ranbir (Kapoor) and Kareena (Kapoor Khan) at our annual Christmas gathering and I’ve seen them in different moods, depending on the latest project they’ve been attached to. I’ve seen the fatigue of a film, whose shoot has been physically very demanding, or they’ve just come off a release and it라이브 바카라 not done too well. For example, Tamasha (2015) didn’t do very well, even though it라이브 바카라 made with a lot of heart. You see someone disappointed, but you also see their perseverance. My attachment should not be with what has passed—it should be with the work at hand.
My father would joke about this other thing—he could track the success of his father라이브 바카라 career based on his birthday, how many bouquets would land up at our doorstep. If it was doing well, our home would be full. And if his career wasn’t tracking well, there would be fewer bouquets. So, I do realise I’m in the phase now, where I’m getting a bunch of metaphorical bouquets, but this won’t always be the case. I just have to remind myself. It will obviously still hurt, but it라이브 바카라 fine. We’ll get through the hurt also.
When you were exploring the possibilities of an acting career, do you remember your initial thoughts? A Bollywood hero has these rigid requirements—did it plant doubts in your head?
Yeah, I was very scared. I felt like I really needed to figure out how to do this in a way that I’d feel confident about it—not in a deluded way, but in a self-assured way. I knew that it takes time to learn a skill and that there is a certain amount of fear and apprehension involved because you know you're not as skilful as you would like to be—you know your taste may be much higher than your ability to execute something. So I was aware of all of that, and then of course, there was some advantage where I have enough proximity to the world where this can be a serious consideration. To be an artist in any discipline is a combination of feeling the frustration and the length of the insecurity of the hunger of wanting more.
How long was this wait from the moment you decided you wanted to pursue a career in acting to doing your first acting gig?
Technically, I would say my first real acting gig was seven years after I decided I wanted to try and pursue this. And my first release, Faraaz, was 10 years after. 2022 is when we had the BFI screening premiere, and then it released in February 2023.
Seven years is a long period, right? Did it ever put doubts in your head?
Yeah, lots of existential doubts man. Especially I think 2016 to 2019—those 3 years were probably the hardest.
One was, I think I looked younger than I was supposed to. So, there was a waiting game. Then there was the question of which opportunity is deemed correct and how must one navigate that? How must one actually find that kind of an opportunity? Then there was the frustration of trying to and not finding that. For example, I worked in production since I was 15 or 16. I started working full-time at 17. I was behind the camera. I wanted to be a filmmaker. I worked my way up. Everything was a process of getting your hands dirty. No institutions of training, but practical training, and then workshops. It was all based on ‘Do the work and that's how you learn’.
In acting, I was not allowed to climb the ladder. Unlike Hollywood, where Timothee Chalamet can play a small part in Interstellar and then go on to become a headlining mega star. How many people have that career trajectory here? The people who inspire me are definitely Vicky Kaushal, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao—they have gone from the small film to the big film. In Hollywood, it seems to be the norm—just look at the cast of the Manson family in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).
The perception was that you will not be taken seriously because of the expectation from your family name. Even now the question is, “How come you did Faraaz? How come you didn't do something else?” Now imagine if I did a small role. It라이브 바카라 really infuriating.
So I asked Adarsh (Gourav) about this, and he said after a point he stopped seeing his physicality as an impediment, and began using it. Did you have such a moment?
Definitely! I think it comes through craft, confidence and a certain amount of self-awareness and acceptance. You know what, I'll do soft and diminutive. At the same time, I'm very confident and physically capable—I do things that are challenging for most extremely fit human beings. I ride horses, I play polo, I surf. I'm physically active, strong, more muscular now than I was when I shot Black Warrant.
I know I’m not six feet tall, but I'm capable of doing things—my relationship with my body, my health and fitness ensure my ability to express myself with my body and voice. It's my prerogative to stay fit and healthy. That doesn't mean I need to look a certain way, it means I need to move a certain way. I don't go to a gym; I have a basement where I have roman rings, a couple of kettle bells. I picked up a functional kind of training called rope flow. I teach myself new skills all the time like skateboarding and riding a bike.
Can you tell me a bit about the day you came back from the premiere of Faraaz—what were you feeling?
There wasn’t a premiere per se, but we did have a screening at BFI, London. About 70% of the same crew was shooting Buckingham Murders (2023) around then, so they flew me and Aditya (Rawal) out for it. It was one of the happiest days of my life. It was a kind of homecoming for me, because around a decade back in 2013, it was in London that I spent around 4-5 months doing theatre workshops and courses. I wanted to get outside the expectation bubble of the Hindi film industry. I needed to get away and find my own way into the work, and those few months in London embedded in me a deep respect for the craft.
One of the best courses I did there was for the National Youth Theatre. They do a bunch of these ensemble productions, and work primarily with actors in the age bracket of 16-25. They believe in a very hands-on approach, and the selection is audition-based, so I auditioned with thousands of applicants. I was probably the only person from South-East Asia. It라이브 바카라 not something you just pay yourself through—and I got a couple of meaty parts in the productions that they did, which really boosted my confidence as an actor. It would take 10 years from thereon for me to star in a feature film, but it was just serendipitous that it was in London that I got to come back as a young professional, and watch myself on the big screen for the first time in a Hindi film.
Do you think with the nepotism debate, people say everything other than what they really should? Sitting on the outside, I can see a very easy solution to it.
A problem here is that most of us want an answer that is neat, simple and clean. It has to be one thing, instead of many things. Also, I think a lot of times when people are calling out privilege, they’re also voicing their frustration. There라이브 바카라 anger and irritation in the way people speak about it. I can acknowledge the frustration—all it needs is some compassion.
On the other hand, when someone is constantly judged and reminded of their privilege, I can feel their frustration about how it라이브 바카라 been made to feel a vulnerable point for someone. You have to compensate, you have to try and dissociate with the word, because it라이브 바카라 made to feel like a dirty word. It라이브 바카라 a very difficult conversation to have. And there라이브 바카라 a lot of pain, emotional insecurity and fear attached to both sides.
But do you think people can be a little less tone-deaf when it comes to acknowledging their privilege? That라이브 바카라 the bare minimum, right? Like you did in the previous question?
Of course! And that라이브 바카라 a good way to put it. By tone-deaf you mean—are you capable of listening to a room? It라이브 바카라 one thing you really have to ask yourself—are you bringing your insecurities to the conversation? Can you acknowledge that you don’t know what it라이브 바카라 like to be this other person—the same way that they wouldn’t know what it is to be me?
Commercial cinema has a habit of homogenising talent—everyone looks the same, talks the same way, does the same things. Is it hard to hold on to your individuality here?
It was hard in the beginning, because I didn’t really fit into a type. I was at a Filmfare thing the other day, and someone was saying how everyone feels like they’re cut from the same cloth. I understand the frustration, being unable to see much novelty around. But what you’re actually seeing is risk mitigation—you’re trying to be safe, catering to a certainty. It라이브 바카라 a way to arrive at the middle of the Venn diagram.
I believe nothing resonates like authenticity. Even with films, it might not always work, but you can smell the honesty and authenticity in a project. I think that라이브 바카라 one of my deepest values—to reflect my authentic self, but in a kaleidoscopic manner, through myriad characters.
Your choices till now have been slightly to the left of the field. Now, after tasting success, do you find yourself moving slightly closer to the middle of the Venn diagram?
Yes, I want to push the envelope as much as I can by trying to find work that is closer to the middle of the Venn diagram, while also doing what I’ve done till now. I like the contrast. Also, I have inspiration very close to home: my grandfather did it long ago, where he was able to cater to the tone of a commercial film and also world cinema at large. Later on, you see Irrfan do it, and I think even someone like Ishaan (Khatter) is doing it in his own way, Adarsh (Gourav) too. So yes, I’d like to try something more mainstream but also bring myself to it.
I want to touch upon Sunil Kumar Gupta라이브 바카라 accent, it라이브 바카라 a tight-rope act. What라이브 바카라 the process of getting just the right amount of inflection? How do you know it라이브 바카라 working?
I didn’t know if it was working. I remember Satyanshu (Singh, co-creator of Black Warrant) was nervous. There라이브 바카라 this opening scene, where I say “Pleej!” And Satyanshu groaned a bit. But then Vikram (Motwane) Sir gave me the go ahead, and I just ran with it. For some reason, Vikram sir believed in it, and Satyanshu was worried that the accent might take people out of the character. I was extremely nervous. I spoke to Aditya (Rawal) and told him, “Maine angrezi bigaad di hai.” And what라이브 바카라 more scary is nobody else has gone for it. I had a scene with Pratibha Sen, where she라이브 바카라 speaking in posh South Delhi English. And I just went for it, not really knowing how I might end up looking.
There was a possibility I could have come out looking very silly. But thanks to my dialect coach, Amitoj Grewal, he was my anchor. We found a way to alter the classical pronunciations like, ‘there’ is ‘they-er’, here is ‘hay-er’. I’m geeky like that. I wrote down all my lines in Devanagari in the phonetic way that I want to say it—like ‘Mujhse nahi hoga’ becomes ‘Musse nahi hoga’—and that라이브 바카라 how you bring ownership to it. Also, filling your ears with the sound of the real man—I would listen to interviews, recordings of Sunil Gupta on YouTube, figuring out how he would say things like “kuh-noon ke hisaab se”, or how he pronounces ‘Law ki padhayi’ as ‘Laa ki padhayi’; it라이브 바카라 a very 80s thing. I’m just trying to fill my ears with the flavour of the region—Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh.
Does a project라이브 바카라 politics matter to you? Can you suss it out early on in the script?
I’m not a huge fan of confirmation bias. If I’ve already decided what my politics for a project is, and it is merely justifying it—that라이브 바카라 what we call a hagiography, right? As an audience, I find that manipulative—like the project is compelling me to think in a way, asking for my agreement. What I’d like personally is that you make some space for me to walk along with you, as the story goes on. We can still disagree, with me having space, as opposed to you asking me to agree, and I find it restrictive. I don’t have a very strong political agenda, so to speak—it라이브 바카라 not something I’m seeking. There are many people who have strong political convictions, and their intent is to solidify those convictions through that work. I don’t have such political convictions yet. I’m interested in things deeper than that.
