Amidst all his achievements, little do people know that Adil Hussain has been a scholar of the Charles Wallace Trust Scholarship at Drama School London, while also being a graduate from the prestigious National School of Drama in India. In an exclusive interview with Asian Voice, Adil said, “I come from a lower-middle-class family. My father was a teacher who couldn't have afforded to send me to the National School of Drama, forget about the UK. So I'm lucky that I got a seat and I got a scholarship. And then similarly after that, I got a scholarship to go and study in the UK.
“But I worked really really hard. Because when I say hard, it didn't feel hard because I was in love with acting. I did it for hours and hours and 1000s of hours. As they say, I've done it.”
Speaking about his role in the film Bell Bottom, Adil told the newsweekly, “I'm playing a real-life character. who was the RAW chief at that time, a true confidant of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, who trusted him. She allowed this character to go ahead and do what he had done. And through this amazing recruit, that he recruited himself called Bell Bottom is codenamed, played by Akshay Kumar.”
Talking about shooting in the UK amid the pandemic, he said, “It was a tough call today because I was leaving behind my wife and my kids, and it was a matter of almost life and death, but at the same time, I realised that we cannot live life like this with fear. I was sure that if since we are also shooting in a country (UK) where things are probably put together in a much more efficient way than many other countries. So, I trusted that and I trusted production to produce that film and Akshay Kumar’s team because Akshay Kumar himself is such a fitness junkie.” Hussain reached the UK in a chartered Jumbo Jet from India.
Addressing the significance of Bell Bottom’s theatrical release for the film economy, Adil said, “I think cinema halls are the ones taking the biggest hit. Because they're almost closed. I hope that that gets revived and the industry as a whole as well. And the magic for the audience to go and watch a film. I hope they do with all that precautions to see, you know, an action thriller and a spy thriller on a big screen, which is based on true events on the 19th of August. I think that'd be fantastic.”
Adil has worked in more than six languages, which include Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, English, Norwegian and now Kannada to name a few. Commenting on the future of language cinema, he said, “It's a difficult one because funding for content-oriented short films or feature films, you know, it's not an easy thing. But yet I'm inundated with offers from short filmmakers to feature filmmakers from different parts of the country.
“There are a lot of offers from Assamese films and Bengali films and other languages as well Tamil films, Telugu films, Malayalam films. So I think things are happening because of the OTT platforms, I think they are still managing to get funding and the courage to put in money you know, the producers and finances, they are making films, which is a great thing for people like those who are in the industry, they can earn their living and they can maintain the family.”
When asked if we could now address regional cinema as ‘Pan Indian’ cinema, Adil told Asian Voice, “I hope that happens. It is happening, I still feel that it's a drop in the ocean. Because when you go to OTT platforms, especially the giants, the big ones, it's very difficult to sort out, you know, but like, for example, on Amazon, there are no categories like television, but on Netflix, they don't have it yet. I mean, if they are looking to expand their viewership, I'm sure that they are intelligent enough to understand and they will do the same.
“I think that barrier of the language is slowly going away. And I hope that that happens more than more and more. It's just that the heartland of India and the population, the majority of the population, probably yet not accustomed to reading subtitles in Hindi. You know, I hope that they do that. It's a habit that one has to create.”
