‘Nawazuddin is a one-take actor’

Superstar Salman Khan feels Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who plays the role of a golfer in his upcoming film Freaky Ali, is a one-take actor.

Playing the titular role in Sohail Khan’s directorial venture, Nawazuddin starts out as a salesman for undergarments. He also doubles up as a local gangster who plays cricket and later somehow lands up playing golf.

At the trailer launch event, the 42-year-old actor even mouthed that particular dialogue in a non-stop way, leaving the audience present in splits.

Salman, who was present at the trailer launch event, too couldn’t control his laughter.“The dialogue on underwear advertisement was the most difficult. I rehearsed it early morning before the shot,” Nawazuddin said.

“That’s why we took Nawazuddin (referring to the way he said the dialogue). He is freaky. He will give you that shot in one take. If I would have done then it would have taken 50 takes. Even after that I would have never been able to say that again,” Salman said.Remember how Aamir Khan got into a a designer-dhoti to break the elitist club of British colonists who forbade the desi peasants from penetrating into the game of cricket? Now director Sohail Khan does a Lagaan on the game of golf in Freaky Ali. Sohail has cast Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the archetypal man of the masses, the dude from the domain of the downtrodden, to take on the stuffed shirts on the golf greens. In the Freaky Ali trailer, though he is shown turning into a golfer, he remains at heart, a tapori. What ensues in the trailer is a series of close encounters of the ‘thud’ kind. Sample this: Nawazuddin looks at a golfer and tells his friend-sidekick Arbaaz Khan, “This guy... He can’t have any children... He doesn’t know how to put a ball into a hole.”

And then looking straight into the eyes of a snooty arrogant excessively whiskered golf snob, Nawazuddin says, Ghamand toh main pahaad ka bhi toda... Phir tu kaun si cheez hai?

The reference to Nawazuddin’s Manjhi: The Mountain Man is not lost.

Faulty as the sexual analogy may be, this is Nawazuddin’s chance to get seriously sexy. So when someone filling a form asks Nawazuddin, “Sex?”, he takes a deep breath and replies, “I really want to. But my mother says not before marriage.” This, then, is new power-packed Nawazuddin as presented by Sohail Khan. In Freaky Ali, Nawazuddin is funny and feisty, and freed of the gun-toting image that Anurag Kashyap has thrust on him. He takes on one of the most elitist activities and turns it into a joke. Golf will never be the same again.

“I had never played golf earlier. It is a technical game and I had to learn it. I practiced the game a lot. I practiced golf for 10-12 days,” Nawazuddin said at the trailer launch of Freaky Ali.

The film also starring Amy Jackson and Nikitin Dheer opens in cinema houses on September 9.