Exploring the darker side of Bollywood with the legendary Prem Chopra

He’s remembered for his flamboyant take on evil, his menacing laugh, feisty one-liners and volatile tricks that attempted to ruin many Bollywood romances, but five decades later, the legendary villain Prem Chopra is giving his time in the spotlight a versatile spin, and taking on characters that aren’t all bad.

In fact, he endearingly captured the affable granddad to Ranbir Kapoor in Bollywood drama ‘Rocket Singh’ most recently. A personality quite unmatched to his (on-screen) rogue image of the 60s and 70s Bollywood.

A Tête-à-tête with Prem Chopra and Rakita Nanda hosted by Gagan Mudgal Creative Director Suno 1024 FM and Manju Ramanan Editor Filmfare Middle East at India Club.

With the Indian film industry celebrating 100 years of cinema, his daughter Rakita Nanda felt it fitting to pen a tribute by chronicling her father's illustrious life on camera, and off it, in her book ‘Prem Naam Hai Mera. Prem Chopra’.

The title aptly captures Chopra’s most celebrated dialogue that terrorised actors Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia in Raj Kapoor’s 1973-hit romance ‘Bobby’.

“It was a guest appearance and that was my only line. I was reluctant to do it, but you can’t refuse to work with Raj Kapoor, and so I went ahead. And, today, that’s the dialogue of mine that’s most remembered,” he reminisces.

In fact, Rakita writes (in the first chapter of her book) about how the dialogue draws reference to the iconic Hollywood line – “The name is Bond. James Bond”.

“One of my granddaughters, who is all of five, heard me recite that dialogue, and has caught on to it, and mimics me all the time,” laughs the 78-year-old actor.

Emirates24|7 caught up with the father and daughter for an exclusive tête-à-tête, when they were in the city to unveil the book at a special event organised by Saffron Media and Entertainment. 

After working in over 320 films in over 50 years, Chopra is still in love with cinema and is willing to take on roles that are not necessarily dark, but those that genuinely touch his heart.

“You have to be in love with what you do, because if you don’t then you shouldn’t be doing it,” he declares, adding that the few calls that briefly stalled our conversation were from film producers offering him parts in their movies.

While he’s excited to go to the set, he’s particular about striking a good balance between work and leisure. “I don’t want to work double shifts, like I used to.”

Talking about being daughter to the most terrorizing face of Bollywood in the 60s, Rakita recalls being traumatised when she first saw her dad getting killed on-screen. “I was screaming ‘my papa is dead’, and people in the theatre were looking at me. I was upset till I got home and saw him. After me, my sisters went through the same phase.”

In fact, Rakita remembers how she even told him to quit playing bad on-screen and take on work that was “honest”.

Chopra chips in, narrating how he had to sit down the girls and educate them about his line of work. “I took them to the film set, and showed them how it all worked. I told them that if I didn’t do my part convincingly then they wouldn’t get the luxuries they were used to.”

It took a while, but the girls soon understood and even turned into his biggest critics, egging him to give his menacing best.

His negative on-screen image, however, didn’t ruin any school friendships. On the contrary, Rakita talks about how her friends would ask her to get their autograph books inked by her dad.

“That was our first memory of knowing that he was a name to reckon with.”

Chopra's grandchildren, however, are still unable to identify their grandfather on-screen because he isn’t bald. “For them I was always bald. it’s as simple as that,” he laughs.

Off-screen, he was a regular father, extremely loving and indulgent, taking his daughters for swimming and other outdoor activities.
 
Rakita distinctly remembers spending many school holidays on film sets with other star kids like Hrithik Roshan, Ekta and Tushaar Kapoor, while their actor-dads and moms worked on their films.

Her book, Rakita explains, is about her father’s life as she saw it. “In fact, his life in films, I’ve discovered while writing this book.”

She had to reference numerous paper cuttings that her mom kept at home, and also interviewed many of his co-stars, namely Amitabh Bachchan and Manoj Kumar, to get a sense of his life on celluloid.

Reminiscing about his time in front of the camera, Chopra talks about how cinema has evolved over time and today allows him to reinvent himself. “Just like me, even Rishi Kapoor (who played the lovable hero back in the day) is taking on characters with negative shades. It depends on whether the films work or not.”

Earlier, Chopra stresses how cinema “was only about the hero, heroine and the villain”. Even he started out playing the hero, but those films didn't do well. On the contrary, the movies were he played villain turned out to be super hits.

In fact, Chopra never felt the need to abandon evil for the good because it guaranteed him a longer shelf life. He was happy that his position was unthreatened, with much of the success of the film riding mainly on the hero, and not the villain.

While his characters remained one-dimensional, Chopra textured the inglorious with style and comedy, and walked away a winner.

He sums up his five-decades in Bollywood with “I’m probably the only actor who has worked with entire generation of the (illustrious) Kapoors.  Right from Prithviraj Kapoor to Kareena Kapoor.”

Rakita's book simplistically captures Chopra's incredible journey, and one that he himself claims is “an interesting life”.

The book is available at Jashanmal store for Dh50.

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