The iconic movie Omkara starring Vivek Oberoi, Ajay Devgn, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Deepak Dobriyal completed 15 years today. The movie is the Hindi adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. Actors Vivek Oberoi and Deepak Dobriyal walked through memory lane and talked about their experience working on the film under the direction of Vishal Bhardwaj.
Before his debut in Omkara, Deepak was a theatre actor who had struggled for years to land a role in Bollywood. He played the role of Rajan Tiwari.
Deepak calls Omkara his first big break and said “This was my first film, so when you’re a struggler and you are getting to work with such big directors, you want to give it your all, thinking, ‘kaam milege, main dikhaunga’. When you are offered such a great role, you also become so full of enthusiasm and want to do your best, so there is a kind of truthfulness in your performance because you have struggled so much to be a part of something like this.”
Speaking further about the movie, he added that Vishal Bhardwaj is a magician. The way he makes his actors perform makes his films timeless classics. He involves himself with his cast and crew and the story. If everybody is in sync, one would realise how Vishal Ji, as a magician, will bring out the kind of performance from you that you’ve never thought you would do. He will leave you surprised. We had some of the most commercial actors in Omkara, but today, all you see are the characters of the story. Vishal Ji can create magic every time he sits on a director’s chair, or even with his music. I learnt to act like an actual human on screen from Vishal ji, I am not an actor when on set.”
In a conversation with another news portal, Actor Vivek Oberoi who played the role of Keshav in the movie said he is an actor who is more into perception and content. I had read a quote in film school that said “There are no small roles, only small actors, and that stuck. If I hadn’t played the role of Keshav Upadhyay, I’d have felt like I missed something,”
He further added: “It was an amazing experience. Vishal Bhai and I have always had a great equation and we were looking to collaborate on doing something together. I loved what he had done in Maqbool (2004) and Makdi (2002). He called me one day and said he was planning to make a film on the play Othello. I went over to hang out and he told me the basic story,” reminisces the actor.
While shooting Bhardwaj had promised Oberoi that he would win an award for his role in the film and it turned out to be true. Oberoi said, “He hugged me after my first shot and said, ‘You’re going to win an award for this. I was like really? And it came through, I won it [for Best Supporting Actor].”