Actor Jim Sarbh talks to Saimi Sattar a dime a dozen, from music to theatre and films, and about the layers of interpretation that inform each discipline
There is this air around actor Jim Sarbh which whispers — busy, intense, intelligent and somewhat intimidating. I have been watching him for a while as he sits in the front row of an event inspired by the Met Gala — Fashion Today, Ideas and Inspiration — put together by YFLO (Young FICCI Ladies Organisation), along with the likes of actor Diana Penty and designers Rimzim Dadu and Arpita Mehta.
He is swamped by female attention. Dressed in a black ensemble, colourfully printed with white cranes and pink flowers and even in the sea of women dressed to the nines, Jim is hard to miss. And when you talk to him, it is almost impossible not to notice those large, expressive and intense eyes curtained by thick, long eyelashes. He gets up frequently as women just hover around him, wanting selfies or wishing to talk to him. He is revelling in the adulation. Later, as we are taking the lift to head to Oko on the 28th floor of The Lalit for his lunch, he does mention that he actually does not mind it when it comes to women for a reason, “The men are more aggressive and they push around.”
The interview, when it does happen, is spliced into two parts, the first being squeezed in between one interview and the session which he attends and the second just after he has ordered lunch — a Thai green curry with vegetables. He would have preferred tofu, but as the server informs him that its taste would be lost, he decides to go with what is listed on the menu.
As I sit down for the first round, Jim is singing a song in a low, bass voice. I wait for him to stop and then interrupt. It is not surprising, since if you go to his Instagram feed, each of his posts is accompanied by a song, not many of which can be classified as popular culture whether it is Habib Koité’s Sin djen djen or Hot hot heat by Bandages.
During the interview, Jim is not easy to pin down. For every question that you ask, you should be ready for a counter question. Even when he answers, there are binaries. So when I ask him about the complexity of his latest outing as Adil Khanna, in the much-acclaimed Made in Heaven, he immediately pipes up to ask, “Is it?” and when I reply, “You won’t say so,” he does agree but adds a rider, “They are all complex characters, at least the main ones.” Again when I ask him about his reference points, he wants to know what that means. He says, “I was just thinking about the way it was written. It was interesting because while reading I could understand or thought I could understand or maybe I could understand what I thought was the most interesting journey for the guy to go through. He is truly in love with both and he does not know what to do. Of course there is the stuff that you can immediately draw on because it’s in the script — he’s used to getting what he wants. He’s the only son in a rich family who lives in a giant bungalow in Delhi and that already gives you enough to work with.”
While executing the character, he says he learnt his lines and then tried different things and ways in which he could say them. “Sometimes the way to tell somebody ‘I love you’ is not to hold their hand or kiss them but just to say, ‘Listen, everything will be fine,’” ending the sentence loudly. He further explains his behaviour, “He carries the baggage of being Tara’s boss, so he keeps floating through the world thinking that it’s still going on in a weird way and maybe it works also, who knows? If the season progresses, I would personally like him to realise that this woman is his equal in more ways than he could have thought of before.” Throughout, his voice is rising and falling, the tenor and tone changing in a manner as if he is in front of an audience on a stage in the theatre.
However, it is the digital format that Jim has been acing of late. After Made in Heaven, he will be seen in Teen Aur Adha. So does he feel that it is fuelling creativity? “I think all formats reward it, why only digital? I can just say that my attempts at creativity have been fairly well-rewarded,” he says drawling every word slowly and pausing in-between each while framing the sentence.
Jim has just ordered and while he is talking, he notices someone at the table busy texting her boss. He demands complete attention by recording and sending a message on Whatsapp saying, “Jim wants her complete attention. And client is king,” as the entire table guffaws at his chutzpah.
But going back to Teen Aur Adha, he says that he had read the short script for his section, just before he did Neerja. “I am tired of hearing that I play negative characters. If this released before Neerja, who knows what would have happened?” he asks.
This film wonders what would happen if the walls of a house had consciousness and then follows the trajectory of three different stories in the same room over the course of three long takes. “The first one is of a boy going to school and coming back to see his grandfather. The second one is a man walking through the same house where he meets a sex worker and the conversation between them. And the third one is about an older man who leaves to play badminton, realises that he has forgotten his racquet at home and returns to pick it only to see his wife dancing. And he didn’t know she danced or liked to as she would do it only at the time that he played badminton. And the last is of the house being renovated. I don’t want to give away too much,” he pauses and adds, “I’ve already given everything away.” Jim stars in the second part of the film, which can have different interpretations, including that there are three different people or three parallel universes existing at the same time or even that they are the same person at different stages of his life.
Besides, Teen Aur Adha, he will be seen in Massage which is a part of a web series called Flip on Eros Now. “I wish more people see me in these films as it is a very different never-seen-before me. When people see you in only one particular avatar they believe that is all you can do. I don’t feel limited like that as an actor and I wish more people believed it with me,” he says.
Jim bites into the crackers that have been placed before him and goes on to elaborate upon the way entertainment is changing. He says, “Digital media is changing entertainment and naturally so. Theatre changed with the advent of cinema. Black and white changed with sync sound and colour. Consequently all forms of media should go through a natural evolution which is a great thing. With digital platforms, we can experiment with different forms of story telling.” He gives the example of ‘cold open’ (a scene preceding the opening titles), which is “a wonderful new thing that has come into visual story-telling because of series. It can be anything that does not have a direct impact on the story that is to unfold but gives you a sense of the world or tells you something that will happen in the future.” And there are more things that the medium offers. “Writers can focus on the script. I am very interested to see innovative story-telling. You already have your own adventure film, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, where you can choose your own adventure just like the Goosebumps comics that we read as kids,” he says, putting another cracker in his mouth. When he begins to speak, he realises his words are warbled and apologises for talking while his mouth is full.
In the meantime, the server places a sake before him which he sips, loves and asks me to taste. When I refrain, he informs, “It is super sweet but really tasty.”
However, he does feel that cinema offers an unmatched experience. “While sitting in a roomful of strangers, one can have a collective emotion. Nothing beats that,” he says and goes on to point out, “Everyone structures everything as a competition. Digital versus cinema or whatever. I don’t see it as that. They are all strains of story-telling and if one is magnificent in its particular medium why shouldn’t it be celebrated?”
However, when I point out to the recent controversy where people objected to Roma, a Netflix film being nominated at the Oscars, he says, “It is similar to people saying that digital films aren’t real films as they aren’t shot on a reel. Whenever some change happens, there are people on its side and those who want to stick by purity. But we should move with the times.” Then goes on to add a rider, “Maybe when I am 60 and people are replacing actors with computers that can digitally show exactly how the actor should look and the performance should be I might say, ‘this is not right, we need to have the human connection. Human beings are better than machine,’” he says as his voice takes on the tonality which befits an older man.
Jim, who has been a part of theatre for much longer than films, had earlier said that he saw the live medium more as his friend. But his views have changed. “After I did Smoke, Padmavat and Sanju and Made in Heaven, I was so relaxed as all the basics had been imbibed. I was no longer worried about eye lines, hidden marks and close-ups,” says the actor.
Though he did direct in theatre, he believes that he would eventually tread the same path in films but right now was not the time.
Like anyone who has dabbled in both the mediums, he is well aware of the differences as well as the meeting grounds. “In a film if you open up your mind to the possibility, you are still performing to the millions of audience sitting inside the camera. Simultaneously, when you are performing on stage, you should forget the audience and be true to the moment. And it is said that you should also do the same for a film. Having said that, in a film when you know in your bones that something will work and you still try it even if the director disagrees, you hope that s/he will retain it in the film. In a play, I can just go ahead and do that. Of course, if it works then the director will say, ‘I directed him to do that,’” he says with a knowing smile as he turns his complete attention to his meal.
Photo: Pankaj Kumar
