The story unfolded five years back when Vinay Forrt was just beginning his career with the Malayalam film Ritu. A product of FTII Pune, he had gone to attend director Rajeev Ravi’s marriage, where he met another FTII alumnus who informed him that one of his friends Anup Kurien was directing a film and was on the lookout for actors.
Vinay did not waste time and contacted Anup who told him about a role in his film The Blueberry Hunt starring Naseeruddin Shah in a pivotal role. Would any budding actor decline a role starring one of the legends in Bollywood? Certainly not, and Vinay immediately agreed.
Anup had mentioned that though the script was powerful, the budget was small and Vinay’s role, though important, would not be lengthy. Vinay was least bothered about his screen space when all he could think about was sharing screen space with Naseeruddin Shah. He says, “How could I even think of declining? I was just starting off in films and I got a chance to act with such a great actor Naseeruddin Shah, one whom I idolised and whose films I used to watch three or four times a day. Incidentally, I had interacted with Naseeruddin Shah during my classes in FTII when he had come for workshops and had spoken to him.”
Vinay Forrt with Naseeruddin Shah
Vinay had three days of shoot with Shah but he faced disappointment about which he explains, “I thought I would be having some dialogue exchanges with Naseeruddin, but since I play a sharp shooter in the film, I had only action chase sequences and no dialogues!” Vinay is full of praise for Anup, who, he says, has made a good film in a small budget which is set to release soon.
Since his Ritu days, Vinay has made giant strides in his career and has been signing both commercial and offbeat films. Commenting about straddling both the mediums, he says, “My job is to act. The director and producer place their trust in us when they give us roles and my job is to redeem that trust through my performance. After acting in one film, I move onto the next and there is also my belief in the director that he would project my performance in the best way possible.” His role of Vimal sir in the hit film Premam skyrocketed his popularity.
But Vinay says, “I wanted to break that comic mould and so stepped into a serious role in Kismet, in which I play a police officer with grey shades. I think it is a challenge to change tracks from a comedy to a serious track.” In hand are films Godse, Avarude Raavukkal, Nallanadappu and Kammatipaadam.
