Irrfan Khan recently won two Filmfare awards (Sadly for the last time). One for the ‘Best Actor’ in a lead role (for ‘Angrezi Medium’) and another was the lifetime achievement award, which brought the prestigious Filmfare awards tally to eight.
Notably, earlier he had won the best actor award for Angrezi Medium’s prequel: ‘Hindi Medium’. And before that, he was the unanimous choice for the best actor role in the remarkably successful ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, which was incidentally Irrfan’s first award as the male lead. Ironically, he had given much better performances in films like ‘Talvar’ and ‘The Lunchbox’, but wasn’t ‘lucky’ enough to get awards for them.
We all know these facts about Irrfan. So, let’s delve a bit deeper with some unknown and some interesting facts about the late actor and his earlier life.
Born in the year 1967 to a Rajasthani family, Irrfan was a fine cricketer but did not pursue the sport, possibly for his greater love of acting. Instead, he went to the reputed National School of Drama in Delhi to become a trained actor.
When Irrfan first arrived in Mumbai to work in films, he used to work as an air-conditioner technician and interestingly had once visited superstar Rajesh Khanna’s house to repair his air-conditioner.
He got his first acting break in Mira Nair’s debut feature film ‘Salaam Bombay’, where he played a minor role of a professional letter writer. Eventually, his tryst with small but important roles in Indian television like ‘Chanakya’, ‘The Great Maratha’, ‘Chandrakanta’ and ‘Banegi Apni Baat’ started getting him slow but steady recognition from within the small-screen industry.
Although he remained associated with Indian television, even so, aspired to be cast someday as a lead film actor. What he did not realize at that time was that his decade-long stint as a television actor was about to yield rich dividends to him.
During this struggle period, out of exasperation, Irrfan had also auditioned for Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘Daud’, a small role which later went to Manoj Bajpai.
Suddenly, in the year 2001, just before a glum thought of quitting the creative industry hovered his mind, he was offered the lead role in the internationally acclaimed writer-director Asif Kapadia’s film ‘The Warrior’. Reckoned to be his saving grace, this film gave Irrfan his overdue recognition, which he had earnestly earned.
Soon enough, he grabbed another meaty role in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s directorial debut film ‘Haasil’. Haasil was a politically charged love-triangle co-starring Jimmy Shergil and Hrishitaa Bhatt. Irrfan effortlessly played the role of the antagonist and overshadowed everyone else.
Subsequently, Irrfan was cast in and as maverick filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Maqbool’, a retelling of William Shakespeare’s tragedy – ‘Macbeth’, albeit in the backdrop of the contemporary Mumbai underworld. The film had a dream cast including big names like Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Tabu, Om Puri and Piyush Mishra. Both Maqbool and Irrfan’s spellbinding act were genuinely appreciated.
Then in the year 2006, Irrfan collaborated for the second time with Mira Nair for the award-winning film ‘The Namesake’. Owing to the film’s worldwide release, it seriously catapulted Irrfan’s name to the international film circuit.
A year later, he tasted another success with Anurag Basu’s multi-starrer musical – ‘Life in a Metro’, in which he was cast opposite Konkona Sen Sharma.
Owing to his earlier international recognition (‘The Namesake’), Irrfan bagged two more consecutive international films namely ‘A Mighty Heart’ (starring Angelina Jolie) and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ (starring Owen Wilson and Adrian Broody).
He was next appreciated for his believable portrayal of a common man in Nishikant Kamat’s ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’, which was loosely based on the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. The critically acclaimed film featured an ensemble cast including Paresh Rawal, Kay Kay Menon, and Madhavan in parallel plotlines, akin in treatment to Brad Pitt’s Babel.
Shortly, Irrfan became part of two big international projects. First was Danny Boyle’s Academy award-winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, in which Irrfan personated a police officer, and which also featured Anil Kapoor, Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto, and Saurabh Shukla.
The second film was ‘New York, I love You’ (also starring Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Ethan Hawke, Robin Wright, and James Caan). It was an anthology of 11 romantic-comedies in which Irrfan was cast in Mira Nair’s segment.
During this period, Irrfan concurrently delivered some decent Indian films like Billu, New York, Right Ya Wrong and Saat Khoon Maaf, for which his work was held in high regard.
Things went from good to great for Irrfan after the release of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ in the year 2012. For the first time since he started his acting career in 1986, Irrfan had won the ‘Best Actor’ Filmfare award for a film. At long last, Irrfan had become a rare bankable star, who was also a damn good actor.
In the same year, two more international projects rolled out: ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ and ‘Life of Pi’. Irrfan juxtaposed his Indian and International assignments the way no other Indian actor had done before.
The following year (2013), with the release of Ritesh Batra’s terrific feel-good drama ‘The Lunchbox’, Nikhil Advani’s spy-thriller ‘D-Day’ and later in Megha Gulzar’s hard-hitting ‘Talvar’, Irrfan further cemented his reputation as the ‘go to’ actor for multi-dimensional and nuanced character roles.
Irrfan’s stature became such, that he was offered two monumental films by Hollywood director Sir Ridley Scott at different times. The first was the film ‘Body of Lies’ (Starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Russel Crowe). The second was the sci-fi flick ‘The Martian’ (starring Matt Damon).
Besides, he was also offered Matt Damon’s role in Christopher Nolan’s epic sci-fi film ‘Interstellar’. Irrfan had to unwillingly bypass all these films due to scheduling conflicts with his ongoing domestic projects, and particularly regretted not being a part of Interstellar.
Irrfan’s tragic demise in April 2020 not only left the global film fraternity in a state of inconsolable shock but also downhearted countless cine-viewers as if someone close to them had passed away.
That’s probably because he was a stellar artist and an even better human being. The unfillable void created by his absence can only be surpassed by the magnificent legacy he has left behind.
Congratulations Irrfan Sir for your last Filmfare award. We can all see the Black Lady smiling!
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