Thanks to his choice of films and series, it is hard to imagine actor Vijay Varma as anything other than twisted. He was the molester, Ankit Malhotra, in Pink. He played the sadistic drug dealer, Sasya, in She. He acted as the manipulative Tyagi twins in Mirzapur. And the abusive husband, Hamza, in Darlings. Varma is the bad guy with shades of warp.
In fact, his last two outings on OTT—a serial killer in the web series Dahaad and a killer in Lust Stories 2—are menacing, hard-to-like portrayals. But, there is more to him than grey, or so he would have you believe. In the just-released Kaalkoot on Jio Cinema, it is Varma who is the one chasing the bad guys.
Directed by Sumit Saxena, the series shows the actor playing a cop on a mission to find the culprits of an acid attack on a girl. How does it feel to play the good guy for a change? “It’s like coming back home because this is who I am,” he laughs.
Elaborating on his role and the plot, the 37-year-old actor says his character is a naive wide-eyed police officer, who thinks he is a misfit in the force. “I felt for the characters and story. It talks about a lot that is happening in society today. It takes the case of an acid attack and delves into why this happens and who is responsible. It’s a systemic failure and the series explores the subject through the eyes of someone seemingly unfit for the job. It showcases how he finds the strength within himself to do what is necessary,” Varma says.
Apart from what he calls “a cracker of a script and a deliciously interesting character arc”, the actor was drawn to working on Kaalkoot with writer and director Saxena, who has penned three of the four stories of the Netflix anthology, Ajeeb Daastaans, including Neeraj Ghaywan’s critically acclaimed Geeli Pucchi.
“His writing has always generated a great amount of conversation. His is a voice I was fascinated by. I wanted to be part of his storytelling,” confesses Varma. In a previous interview, the actor mentioned that he believes his character is as empathetic, sensitive and vulnerable as him.
Does that make the role easier? “It comes with another set of challenges because the idea is to take on a completely new identity. I am a purist as an actor and don’t try to sell myself through any of my characters. Even here,I had to detach myself and my personal opinions, just like I would in productions such as Dahaad or Darlings,” he explains.
Varma’s acting career kicked off in 2008 with the short film, Shor. He then caught the audience’s eye in Gully Boy as Moeen. The proverbial trope of an ‘outsider making it in the industry’ fits him to the T. Today, this outsider is the paparazzi’s darling, thanks to his much-talked-about relationship with Lust Stories 2 co-star Tamannaah Bhatia.
In a recent interview, Bhatia expressed that Varma is her “happy place”. What does she mean to him? “She is my monsoon,” he chuckles. Why monsoon? “It keeps me grounded,” says the actor, who will next be seen in Mirzapur 3 and Devotion of Suspect X with Kareena Kapoor Khan.
