Express News Service
Why don’t I get to play someone who is grey, not always black or white?” asks Mohammad Ali Baig. In his defence, he has played either the suave top cop who is saving the country from a terrorist attack or is a kohl-sporting, nose ring-wearing, hardened criminal who is conspiring against the country.
The Padmashree awardee from Hyderabad thinks he can afford to ask such questions as he has earned this privilege with his hard work in the last two decades. He is the founder of the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation, started 16 years ago, and which staged its annual show to a packed auditorium a few weeks ago. Baig debuted on the silver screen with Tamil blockbuster Aruvi in 2017. Now he has a bunch of OTT shows on hand. “As filmmakers, we should stop making the hero look so heroic and villains look so evil. We should humanise both heroes and villains,” he says.
Even as he speaks about the ideal case scenarios in the OTT circuit, he is enjoying being in the spotlight. He plays a police officer investigating a drug nexus in Mumbai in director Imtiaz Ali’s She on Netflix. The show’s second season is set to begin this month. He is also upbeat about Suresh Krishna’s thriller series In the Name of God on Aha OTT platform. It’s his debut Telugu OTT series where he plays a psycho drug peddler from Israel who strays into Rajahmundry town in Andhra Pradesh.
But why has the 40-plus actor stayed away from Telugu shows/films for so long? “I don’t know. I am always the outsider,” he bemoans. Incidentally, even in his roles, he is the outsider. In She 2, he is a cop from Delhi working in the Mumbai Police. In the upcoming Telugu movie Kalinga, he is a Telugu anthropologist who goes to Kerala. In Cobra, he is from Kolkata who goes to Chennai.
“However, in June I broke the myth with Rossi (his character in In the Name of God). Otherwise, everyone thought I am an English/Urdu actor from a royal Muslim family who is not familiar with Telugu. I am proud to say that my Telugu is so good that I even corrected the ‘maatras’ in the dialogue on the sets of In the Name of God. I hope the Telugu industry embraces me now,” he quips.
When he’s not doing theatre, movies or OTT shows, Baig is a full-fledged ad filmmaker. His company CineWorks has produced 450 ad films so far, including the Aditya Birla Group million dollar budget ad ‘Taking India to the world’.
“It’s easier to make a 180-minute feature film than to make a 30-second ad commercial that sells a product. Yet, ad filmmakers get no credit for their work. How unfair,” laments the actor best known for his Urdu theatre production Quli: Dilon ka Shahzaada.
As he awaits the release of his next Tamil film Cobra (featuring Vikram) and Sardar (with Karthi) in 2022, what’s the role that he is most excited to play? “That of a dad. We are expecting our first child in November,” he signs off excitedly.
OTT Vs Theatre
“I have performed at Edinburg, Toronto and Lahore etc where the audience turnout was over 1,500. They are a committed audience who wait for the show to begin at that particular venue and then take time out to give me mature feedback about my work. Now, I have a different set of audiences who watch me on their phone in OTT platforms, often while multi-tasking. The feedback is a two-word, badly-spelt compliment, yet straight from the heart. Something like “Osm sir, Rossie rocks.” Theatre and OTT are two different worlds, but with a different charm.”
IN CHARACTER MOVIES
Aruvi, Tamil, 2017; NSG Commando Haveli Diary, English, 2018; Artist Kalinga, Telugu, 2020; Anthropologist Cobra, Tamil, 2021; Maths teacher Sardar, Tamil, 2021; Bureaucrat
WEB SERIES
In the Name of God, Telugu, 2021; Criminal She – Season 2, Hindi, 2021; Police Officer
