13 May,2026 08:54 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Chitrangada Satarupa and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Main Actor Nahin Hoon
Even if director Aditya Kripalani hadn't posted a few videos online of young actors in Andheri, copiously weeping before the camera, while stepping out of the theatre - I'd believe him about the sort of visceral impact/resonance that his film, Main Actor Nahin Hoon (MANH), would have on the community it's based on.
The film's female lead (Chitrangada Satarupa) plays a sincere, professional actor, somehow surviving in Bollywood's struggler-central, Yari Road, and thereabouts.
Opposite her is Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a depressed, retired banker in Frankfurt. They get into a day-long conversation, over video-calls, that turn into an acting workshop of sorts, in real time.
Filmmaker Aditya Kripalani
Beyond that art, including acting, equals therapy, in its own right - MANH engagingly examines the sort of emotional turmoil that artistes go through, in order to produce art itself. The art is public. The toll is inevitably personal.
Aditya explains, "In a sense, acting is the opposite of spirituality. Wherein you [profess to project] outwards, but end up peeking deeper within, instead." Aditya read screenwriting from FTII in 2003.
Ever since, he's remained the rare champion of self-expressive, low-budget filmmaking, prolifically writing-directing-producing since his debut, Tikli And Laxmi Bomb (2017) Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal (2019), Devi Aur Hero (2019), Not Today (2021).
MANH is his first theatrical release. For a genre, the film belongs to the naturalistic mumblecore, wherein the distance between reality and fiction feels zero.
In an early scene, you watch actor Naveen Kasturia make a cameo - his slacker comedy, Amit Masurkar's Sulemani Keeda (2013), similarly set in Mumbai's competitive, migrant movie-township, is a fair sample for the said film type.
Another fine Indian example is Ram Madhvani's Let's Talk (2002) that launched the brilliant
Boman Irani's film acting career, in his early 40s.
Aditya met his star, Nawaz, through Instagram who, in turn, came onboard his film, without charging any fee.
Frankly, it's hard to instantly imagine Nawaz as a polished, super-suave, former manager director of a top bank in Germany.
It's harder still to see this NSD-grad since 2012 (Gangs of Wasseypur), in particular, as anything but an actor. His character's learning the ropes of acting, throughout MANH. As is the audience. Nawaz has to act like a non-actor. It's a bloody bold move!
I remember Nawaz telling me, once, that the world of social media - where the public was getting so used to watching people, as they are, on the screen, round the clock - was making it all the more difficult to reproduce the same reality as an actor, onscreen. It's so much easier for audiences to spot fakeness then!
I can kinda sense what must've drawn Nawaz to Aditya's script. It's could also be some of the films he's starred as lead in, lately - the sorts of Haddi, Tiku Weds Sheru, Jogira Sara Ra Raâ¦
MANH equally explores the thick line between art and circus. Fundamentally, artistes (actors, included) tend to gain, if they're in line, or naturally inclined, towards seeking validation from crowds of strangers, for what counts as base-level entertainment.
Or simply playing the influencer/PR game. You sell out to earn more. No knock, or moral judgement - there's also a living to be made, no?
It's brutal to so clearly witness the talented, professional actor, Mouni, in MANH - and Chitrangada's incredible, no doubt - pursuing art as soup for her soul, while being denied basic riches/comforts that her day-long banker student, Adnan, must've taken for granted all his life.
Tradeoff is, perhaps, hers alone. His job could've been mind-numbingly mundane/boring, compensated for with great pay. Jealousy is still complete.
While certain audiences are getting moved, in unknown ways, by his film, and you can see why, Aditya tells me he saw MANH in another light himself last night.
So much of writing is subconscious. And one of his favourite films (mine too) happens to be Ram Gopal Varma's Rangeela (1995), also placed in Bollywood.
Aditya argues, "Over there, Mili (Urmila Matondkar) was a âdabba' actor, but she wanted to be a star. Mouni is her sadder version, going down a rabbit hole.
The film is a tribute to Rangeela!"
Which was a musical, of course. Unlike MANH that, as Aditya explains, was simultaneously shot, live, over 33 days, straight - with the lead actors between two cities (Mumbai, Frankfurt), responding to each other's lines that changed with each frickin' take!
The film dives into emotions that actors draw out for performances. But that's just one crippling aspect of art. You need the distance of plain, clinical skills to pull it off still. Nobody notices that. Or is meant to.
Aditya sounds kinda pissed to me that film critics, in general, haven't quite acknowledged the technical craft that went behind the making of MANH. If I was him, I'd take that as a compliment.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.
