With one foot in Bollywood and the other in Hollywood, Ali Fazal has been having the best of both worlds. After making his debut in Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘3 Idiots’, there has been no looking back for the actor. Ahead of his next big Hollywood release, ‘Death on the Nile’ co-starring Gal Gadot, ETimes caught hold of the actor for an exclusive interview. In a freewheeling chat, Ali spilled the beans on how his mother prepped him up for the big screen unintentionally, his stint in Hollywood, and his journey in films back home in Bollywood. Excerpts…

Would it be wrong to say that the year 2020 has been bittersweet for you? You incurred a loss on the personal front, but professionally you were on a roll…
I suppose that could be the go-to word. It has been introspective. I mean we all are dealing with the larger problem; the world has also hurt a lot.

How did your journey in showbiz begin?
It happened purely by accident; I didn’t plan it this way. My life was normal; I was a science student and was studying in a boarding school. I wanted to be a pilot, then I wanted to be a doctor. I was in 11th or 12th grade when I broke my arm, before that I used to play a lot of basketball, hockey, and short put. That is when I experienced stage or acting of any kind. I did a Shakespearean play ‘The Tempest’. Then I came to Bombay for college. I was still studying Economics but somewhere that seed was already sown.

My mother was a painter; I had only known about it. It was only five years ago that I came to know that she was also a popular stage name at the Aligarh Muslim University. She had never told me about it. These were her little secrets that I came to know about later. That somewhere, I think, reassured me.

It has been interestingly democratic for me. I like the way it started. I did stage and then I did my first film which unfortunately never saw the light of the day. Then ‘3 Idiots’ happened, which was again during my college days. Then I did the others. Shah Rukh Khan was producing my first big film but that also bombed. Then ‘Fukrey’ came along. Slowly, sometime later, my Hollywood journey began.

Have you been a movie buff since your childhood?
I have been a movie buff throughout my childhood. I was horribly addicted to movies. I used to love this world of fantasy. When those lights go off in a theatre, you are in a meditative state; you feel every emotion that the hero portrays and fall in love with them. It was almost like training for me. It was my mother who exposed me to some amazing world cinema. Now, in hindsight, I feel like she was preparing me for it without me realising it. I remember the first story that my mother told me was of an Italian family, living in New York. It was a three-generation story of a family involved in mafia. In my later years, I find out that was the story from ‘The Godfather’. I went to my mom and asked her, ‘Ye kya sunaya tha aapne mujhe? (What was this story that you had narrated to me)’ She told me that she had watched the film and liked it, and I also seemed to have liked it when she narrated. So, my beginning itself was dramatic. But I am thankful for that exposure.

Who did you idolise as an actor?
There are so many! I believe Dilip Kumar sahab is brilliant. My most favourite film to date is ‘Mughal-E-Azam’. When I feel lost, I sit and watch that movie even today. Marlon Brando was a great influence on me because of his iconic contribution to cinema and to humanity. He is one of the few people who stood up for things at a time when people didn’t know what it meant to use the power of cinema of representation and help people. I am not saying that I am doing it but I am trying. Hopefully, I will make a difference.

What is the major difference that you found in working in Hollywood vs working in Bollywood?
I think we have evolved a lot with time. In the last two years itself, we have catapulted a lot in Indian cinema. I remember when I was shooting for ‘Victoria and Abdul’, it was very different. ‘Fast and Furious’ was even more different. There is no comparison because their economy is different. Their budgets are huge. Every Hollywood film that I have done has catered to 250 countries automatically. And this is before going to OTT, just the box-office. ‘Death In The Nile’ is, I am sure, close to a 100 million dollar budget. ‘Victoria and Abdul itself was made on a 40 million dollar budget and we made up about 80-90 million dollars. I can’t compare that to Indian cinema. If I talk about it, I will get categorised into various clubs we have in Bollywood.

The comparisons are unfair but yes, the productions in India are getting better. I believe the more local we go, the more global we will become. The problem is that we have been aping the West for a large part of our process and that is where we lost our identities in the ’90s. This you don’t find in Tamil or Malayalam films; they remain true to their stories. When I am sitting and voting for the Oscars and I see a ‘Jallikattu’, I am proud of it. Those things are exciting and it will go even further. Hollywood started before us so it is okay to look up to it. It is okay that they are ahead.

This is one of the reasons I did ‘Mirzapur‘ despite people telling me not to do it. I had already seen that happening in Hollywood; I had seen that change. It worked there, so, I thought maybe I could bring that on the canvas here in Bollywood. I am glad it worked.

Do people in Hollywood still think Bollywood is just song-and-dance or has their perception changed in the last few years?
I think many still do but it is definitely changing. Now that the canvas is big, it is hard to ignore. There is no excuse anymore. You have access to every country, region, and language on the internet. I don’t buy it if you tell me you didn’t know. That is one of the reasons I tried to collaborate with them on all the Urdu dialogues in ‘Victoria and Abdul’. Urdu is such a big essence of our culture and we cannot do a Google translate on that. Of course, in other films, I have played different characters so I can’t do much. ‘Death In The Nile’ has blind casting. I am playing a British in that film and that is fine as these are larger-than-life films; your ethnicity should not matter. Those are films you do just for versatility and fun. But when you are depicting an Indian onscreen, we Indians have to be responsible.

Have you faced any racial discrimination when you were shooting in the West?
I don’t know. Maybe it happened without me knowing or realising. I am still new to the game out there. I have only been part of one Oscar campaign. I don’t know who from India has been a part of that. When you are a part of a film campaign, and if you are a lead in that film, you do it almost like a Presidential campaign. You start from September onwards and go all the way to the Oscars, which is in March. We were lucky that we got make-up and costume nominations then. I will find out and maybe then I will be able to talk about it. It would not be fair to talk about it now.

Of course, I know it happens and I have seen it happen. We all have been a part of it. There is systemic racism; it is something that we are used to. Even in our own country; forget racism, there is even gender inequality. We are in a place where we still don’t know if we have equal pay for men and women. During this pandemic, I have felt like a privileged a**hole sitting and doing my thing. People I know–technicians and others–have left the country because we don’t have an union. I don’t know if this fits in racism but this is some kind of hierarchical hypocrisy. There are a lot of problems; hopefully, we’ll be able to change that one by one. We are still dabbling with our basic problems that are poverty and unemployment. You know I always tell people that ‘Kal ko hum nahi rahe toh chalega par mera plumber nahi aaya kaam pe toh meri vaat lag jayegi (It would be fine if we don’t stay but if my plumber doesn’t come to work tomorrow, I’ll be in a soup)’.

You have received immense love and appreciation for your character Guddu in ‘Mirzapur’. How has it changed things for you?
Things have changed immensely after ‘Mirzapur’; I am really grateful. People look at you for what you were last Friday; that is how people cast you. I was always this subtle English-speaking actor but it changed my image. For me, it is also the little man inside my head having fun because I like the unpredictability that people have. At the end of it, we are all actors. I like to lead and mislead people through my cinema not otherwise. It works.

You were all set to marry last year. However, the pandemic did not allow it. Can we expect you and Richa Chadha to tie the knot this year?
I hope so. There have been some back-to-back hard-hitting pieces of news that affect all of us. In my personal life too, first I lost my mother, then my uncle–it has been a hard ride. We will try doing something nice and small. We will let everybody know and celebrate with them once the pandemic loosens up a little and vaccines are administered.

Tell us something about your next Hollywood film, ‘Death on the Nile’.
It has been a nice experience. I look forward to the movie releasing this year. Once it releases, I will have more to talk about it.