‘It was a strange experience...’

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub opens up about The Emmys, Nana Patekar and more

Kabir Singh Bhandari

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub began his film career by playing a negative role in No One Killed Jessica (2011), following it up with several other films like Jannat 2 (2012), Raanjhanaa (2013) and Shahid (2013). Of late, he seems to be part of highly acclaimed projects, whether it is Real Kashmir Football Club, which has got an Emmy nomination, the web series Hunkkaar or the upcoming Eetha, starring Shraddha Kapoor.

In a Zoom video interaction with The Free Press Journal, he opens up with us about all these achievements, along with telling us about his experience working with Nana Patekar. Excerpts:

How did you get associated with Real Kashmir Football Club, and did you, in your wildest dreams, ever expect an Emmy nomination?

I think I was shooting in Liverpool, and I got a call from Mukesh Chhabra, the casting director. He said they wanted to meet me for a show being made on the Real Kashmir Football Club. Honestly, I did not know anything about RKFC at that time; it was my ignorance.

Then, when I came to Mumbai, I was also a bit reluctant because I thought a show on Kashmir would end up being the same: they would either be selling the geographical beauty, the topography, or else they would be showing all the violence, and it wouldn’t be anything else. And then I went there, I got to know about the club properly, and I had a great discussion with the producers and creators. Fortunately, we all were on the same plane since we didn’t want to show the clichés of Kashmir. Our show was about hope, the future and the youth.

How did you get to know about the Emmy nomination?

So, that was a strange experience because I was on a flight to Mumbai when the announcement was made. As soon as I landed, I started getting messages from the last few hours. The first message I read was from a journalist saying congratulations and asking for my reaction, and I was thinking, ‘About what!’ And it was like, oh, congratulations.

First of all, we would like to have your quote about this. And I was like, about what? I did not understand. Then I started checking messages from various cast members and understood that we had been nominated. More than any award, it was about the recognition for something which I had believed in so strongly. Also, because of the nomination, a lot of people started watching the show who were not aware of it before.

With Nana Patekar’s passing, what are your thoughts on working with him in Sankalp?

He was the kind of teacher who won’t traditionally teach you. He’ll just come in at the right time and give you some wisdom. Those pointers would not only be applicable for that scene, but for acting as a whole. He was an impulsive and brilliant actor.

He used to maintain a register for every character that he played, and he used to write all the dialogues by hand because he was an artist. So, it was almost calligraphy, what he was doing. He had markings indicating where the tone would go up and where it would come down. It was all pre-decided and well-rehearsed because one day he gave that copy to me and told me to check if he remembered all the lines or not.