Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap recently opened up about his first encounter with actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a collaboration that would later produce some of Bollywood’s cult projects like Gangs of Wasseypur, Sacred Games and Raman Raghav 2.0. In an interview, Anurag revealed a fascinating story that goes all the way back to 1998, when he was casting for Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya.
Anurag Kashyap was, in fact, at a railway station when he first met Nawazuddin, who wasn’t carrying his own luggage but someone else’s. That someone turned out to be another future Bollywood actor — Rajpal Yadav! At that moment, Nawaz was helping Rajpal in his acting pursuits, long before he made his own name in the industry. This brief, almost serendipitous meeting eventually led to one of the most fruitful director-actor partnerships in Indian cinema.
“There was this very good actor called Rajpal Yadav, who had come to Mumbai, but was leaving the city, because he was depressed and had given up. One actor called Ashraf Ulhaq, he has passed away now, was in Black Friday. He told me can you talk to this guy (Rajpal) and give him some hope. So, we met him at the railway station and Nawazuddin Siddiqui was carrying his suitcase! That’s how I met him,” Anurag recalled.
Anurag Kashyap recalled telling Rajpal Yadav that he was casting for a film called Shool and had a role for him. Rajpal eventually took the one-scene part as a coolie. Nawazuddin, who was low on cash and full of dreams, asked for a role too. Anurag Kashyap cast him in a blink-and-you-miss scene in Shool.
“From there his career started. Nawaz was there, so he asked me, ‘Can I also get a role?’ I told him there was no other role left but maybe I can put you somewhere. He said, ‘I have no money to eat, I will do anything.’ So in Shool, Nawaz played a waiter in one scene featuring Manoj and Raveena. It was a very thin Nawaz and that’s how it all started,” he said, wrapping up.
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