You can’t break an image easily. A number of actors have been stuck in their images: Samir Khakar

On Saturday, a tweet that said, senior actor Samir Khakhar, famous for playing Khopdi in the Doordarshan serial Nukkad, is looking for work, came to the attention of many in the entertainment industry including director Sudhir Mishra and actor Gulshan Devaiah. Mishra had worked with Khakhar in the serial Naya Nukad and recently in an OTT film, Serious Men, and felt it would be a shame if what the tweet said was true. Devaiah, on the other hand, tweeted saying, “The forgotten become irrelevant and that’s the greatest fear for an actor. This can be anybody’s reality. It’s a tough business.

Ask Khakhar about his career and he replies, “Everyone looks for work. We want some activity to be engaged. I never got frustrated if I didn’t get the work I wanted. I am an introvert and can’t sell myself for work. People who know me call me and give me roles.”

The actor admits that Nukkad made his career and recalls working with the trio – directors Aziz Mirza, Kundan Shah, and Saeed Mirza. “I have been doing theatre since a young age and then came Nukkad. I was told that my role, Khopdi, a drunk was supposed to be for three-four episodes but when they saw me perform, and the reception to the role, they decided to flesh out my character some more and rest is history. In fact, though it was a drunk’s role, it was not one-dimensional. A lot of effort went into the role of Khopdi. But later, due to the popularity of the role or I don’t know what else, people just wanted to typecast me as drunk in projects. I tried to choose roles which were different but I didn’t feel very good to be playing a drunk in films and serials. People just wanted to typecast me as drunk. I knew I could act. Image ke pinjare se aap bahar nahin aa sakte. You can’t break an image easily. A number of actors have been stuck in their image,” says Khakhar, known for films such as Pushpak (1987) and Parinda (1989), TV show Circus (1989).

Going forward, he is looking for sensible roles and not to play just another drunk in a project. He has shot for a film called Saksham, where he plays a rag picker and a web series Sunflower, where he plays a hypochondriac.