Dalip Tahil: 50 Years of Acting, Special Ops & His Dream to Sing Onscreen (Indian Film Actor)

Dalip Tahil Interview

Aamir Khan actually came to me, to my house in Bombay....

Q. Let's start from the beginning, how would you describe your journey so far as an actor? And what's changed in how you see your work over the years? 

As an actor. Well, you know, I sort of had a very early start. And not as a professional actor. But now when I look back on it, when people ask me about 'Where did you begin?' People are quite keen to know what origins of getting into this job were. Which is actually good, because people need to, I suppose, need to know, how you begin to work in this profession. For me, it became a profession much later. 

I kind of started when I was in school. The school I went to had a very good choir and they had a very good dramatic society. So from a very early age, I found myself on stage doing school activities. The school play that we used to have, because it was a Christian Protestant school, we used to have nativity, we used to have school concerts. So I always found myself on stage. Never in the audience. So from there, I began to do school plays and gradually it became interesting. And I wound up doing the school plays when I was very young.

Actually, in my senior year in class nine, we did a school play and much to my surprise, and I suppose to a lot of other people's surprise as well, I won the Best Actors Cup. In school, in Sherwood, in Nainital. That came as a very pleasant surprise, but a surprise because the kind of adulation and the kind of response I got from that was something new to me, but very interesting. More importantly, I enjoyed doing what I was doing. 

I had a lot of fun while I was on stage. We were doing a light play, it was a comedy, and it was a lot of fun. And along with that, it seemed to sort of satisfy some side of me. I used to go to see the movies and I used to imitate the actors and act out the scenes at home, particularly the action scenes. My sister, I used to sort of make her the guinea pig and used to do action scenes with her and she used to get very annoyed. But so I sort of had this in me of, I suppose most kids do when they grow, when you're a child and you see a movie, you tend to do what they're doing in the film. 

So from there onwards, I was on stage. And then after school, I came to Bombay and I joined the very famous and legendary theatre group. Which was, run by Alyque and Pearl Padamsee. I joined up with the theatre group and began to do plays. And from there, my journey began into being a professional actor. 

I started in school, so I was eight or nine years old when I went to Sherwood College. So I was always in the choir as well, from day one to the day I left school. It helped me develop my singing voice. It helped me develop my speaking voice. When I look back on it, I see a lot of the preparation and the foundation for the tools needed to be an actor, a voice, a little bit of inhibition, which helped me come on stage was provided there. 

You're always panicked when you're doing a play. It's not a question. It's not that you don't feel the butterflies and everything every time you perform. I'm not talking about that. But I got kind of familiar with the idea of coming on stage and sort of performing and trying to be somebody else, which strangely I always enjoyed doing, for long before I became a professional actor. I used to like to impersonate things that I saw on the screen. I guess there was something in me that sort of enjoyed that. 

Q. You have played such a wide range of roles from intense to iconic. So I would like to know these days, what makes you say yes to a script? What are some roles that you're looking at and you're like, yes, I want to do this one? Because in your long journey, you might have understood what works for you the best. 

Not really. Never been able to figure that out. What I have principally done, because it is the way it started with me. I've always relied on directors or people to come to me with what they may see as how I fit into their storytelling. In fact, when I was very young, and I got on stage, I was always called by the school play director. And they gave me a role, they made me read and then they gave me a role. And that's pretty much what I've relied on. 

I mean, I haven't gone out and said, this is the role I want to play or this is what I want to do. I've relied more on people coming to me. So I mean, it's the other way around, because I started very young. And I've had that I even when I joined a theater group with Alyque and Pearl, I relied on them giving me the part that they thought would be good that I would fit into, into the play or the piece from that point of view.

And that happened later on when I got my first film with Mr. Shyam Benegal as well. He came tome backstage after a play, which we did in Bombay musical called Godspell and said, if you have a head to get a haircut, I've got a role for you in this film. 

So I've always gone that way. And I performed it. And I've always gone with what people see in me, what they may think that I would be able to fit a character. And by and large that has worked for me. 

A good example of that is Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. Because I never dreamt that I would be able to do a role like the character I played. But now for that, Aamir Khan actually came to me, to my house in Bombay, in Bandra and said, you got to do this role. Now, he saw something in me that he felt would suit the part, though I didn't see anything in me that would suit that part. But I was proven wrong, because eventually I did play that role. And it seemed to work. I've used this as an example of what I'm trying to say.

I've always relied on people coming to me and saying, look, we have this story and we thinkthat you would really fit this part in the story. And then I go with that flow and try to be part of the storytelling. As far as the script is concerned, the yardstick that I use, is that if my character was not in this movie, the story would not be able to be. You will not be able to tell the story. The character has to be pivotal to the story. SoI hear the story of what we call a narration, what the story is in the script and the character offered to me. If I feel that this movie can be made without this character, which rarely happens. 

I'm happy to say that so far in my career, I've usually got roles that are pivotal to the story. So that's pretty much how I go. Otherwise, and of course I have to like the story. But sometimes I don't, I may not be completely convinced by the story, but I do take a leap of faith. I have done in, in several cases and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Even if I don't think that it's such a great story, it depends on how it is narrated to me and the conviction of the director or the person who's written the story. So I go with it. And sometimes it works. In Baazigar, it worked. In fact, I didn't even hear the entire script. 

Baazigar I basically was convinced to do it because it was the main antagonist and everything revolved around the now famous name Madan Chopra. So even though I don't mean to praise myself, but that was the other motivating factor. 

The other factor that, that convinced me to do Baazigar was that I would share screen time, albeit not a lot, with Rakhi Ji, the great legendary leading lady. She was Shah Rukh Khan's mother in the movie. I was a huge fan. I still am. That was the first time that I would be in a film with her. There were a couple of scenes in which I interacted with her. So that was a big motivation for me to do Bazigar. 

Along with the fact that there's one antagonist, so you can't go wrong in a film like that. The rest, you go with the flow and the script and the scenes. So that's been usually the way I go about it.

Q.You've worked in theatre, television, films and digital media. Now you're exploring OTT as well. So what is the one thing that you love most about each of these different mediums and which medium is your favorite? One that you love to do. 

I don't have a favourite. I have just been fortunate that I've been on the planet so long. And I've been part of a period in technological history where all these technologies have come. Because when I started, there was only a single screen. Then television came. And I got work in television. I was just fortunate to be around when television came. So I got Buniyaad, which was a television series. I was fortunate enough to work with legendary director Mr. Ramesh Sippi in it. So that happened in my life because of technology.

Then from there, it went to the multiplexes. So there were different kinds of films being made and became so-called 'for the multiplexes'. So there were different kinds of scripts being written. I happened to be in this as an actor at that time. So I enjoyed doing some of those films. 

Then for no contribution of mine came OTT. So I'm around when OTT is there. So actually, I consider myself in a very fortunate generation of actors who's actually been around when these great technological moments, these great technological aspects have come into the present and changed of how we see our content. 

So that's about all that. So, I mean, as an actor, I'd like to explain this and people should understand this, that as an actor, nothing changes whether I perform for the big screen or I work for television or I'm doing a smaller series or I'm doing an OTT. From the point of view of my giving a performance, nothing changes. I do exactly what I do. 

I perform the part exactly the same way. The advantage that I feel, which was not lost on me, the significance of it was in a feature film, which is a two and a half hour film. The international and European and Hollywood films are usually about 1- 1.5 hours. Whereas our films are two and a half hours. So in two and a half hours, we have five songs.

We have the leading lady and the leading man whose love history, whose love connect has to be established. Then the story has to be established. Then the good guys, the bad guys, the characters. As a result, none of the actors has that much time to develop the characters. 

In a two and a half hour film, if 20 minutes go to the songs, that leaves you about two hours, 10 minutes to establish a whole story, the love angle, as Hindi movies are. So as a character actor, in the film, you don't get much time to develop your character.

If you have to hit a sur of 10, you start at nine and a half. I mean, there's no developing it from one to 10. You go back, you come straight into it. You've got to come ready and go. You've got to hit that sur, that note, bang on. 

Whereas in television, here's the advantage to an actor. You have episodes, so it gives you more time. Your character draft can be dealt with in a more detailed manner, which is hugely advantageous. There's a huge advantage as an actor that you get all this time to be able to develop and display the nuances, so to speak, of your character. And the same with OTT, because it's episodic.

In OTT, you have eight to 10 episodes of 40- 50 minutes or half an hour each. So your character is developed over that period of time on the screen. So that's the difference. So I do like the longer format. In terms from that point of view. But then there are certain roles and feature films that have a completely separate impact.

So all in all, it's a very good time to be a working actor. And once again, I said I consider myself very fortunate to have been around long enough on the planet to be able to see all these huge technological advancements.

Q. With the different medium, do you also feel that there is a shift in how stories are told today? Do you think they are better? 

Storytelling is something I mean, I cannot sit here and make a judgment on if it's better or worse than that. You can tell a great story in a feature film also. So nothing to do with that. But without a doubt, the challenges to to tell a story over a period of, let's say, instead of two hours over a period of 10 hours is challenging, don't think it's easy. Because it is a different kind of writing. 

I just have to be of the mindset that they now have to tell the story over 10 hours. That doesn't mean it becomes easier. In fact, it could become far more difficult. You can't just say that, well, I've got 10 hours. I'm going to do what I like. You still have to have be able to tell the story with a grip and captivate the audience. It's very easy to lose an audience in a television show or an OTT show.

You have to keep the audiences. And there's a special kind of writing that is required to keep the audiences involved, because one of the disadvantages of the longer format is that you've got to keep the audience engaged for that much longer. And these are formats that you can see at home. You can see it on your handset, on your mobile phone. So there are a lot of distractions.  The whole set of new challenges that come with that. 

So the advantage in that respect of having people in the theater is that someone has come voluntarily and they're sitting in the theater to see your movie. So from that point of view, you have a captive audience. In the longer format, you have to keep your audience captivated, engaged over a longer period of time. 

So it's difficult. It's not easy writing. But it is a challenge that writers have to face and actors as well, so that you develop your character. Writing is a job for professionals. And usually things that succeed and look good, have a good screenplay. And it's a professional job. So they both have their challenges. 

And like I said, that is the writing department, the direction department. They are the ones who have it really difficult. So do the actors. But I feel as an actor that I still consider it that I have the choice of these formats. And I've been fortunate to have worked in different formats. So when I need a change, I do a feature film. Then I get a story for a web series and I do that.

It's wonderful. It’s been worth it from that point of view. Being around for so long.

Q. Coming to the fan interactions, you've had so many iconic films in the 90s. So do you find fans coming up to you and quoting those lines? Is there any particular memory or interaction that has stayed with you? 

Both the films that I mentioned to you, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, these characters have remained with the audience for over 25- 30 years. I mean, the character that I played in Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, the sort of over-the-top eccentric Sindhi character, still resonates with the audience. People remember it to this day.

Baazigar is remembered to this day. I mean, it's almost my second name, if not my first name-Madan Chopra. People don't even know my name. They call me Madan Chopra. 

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak is another film I did, which was Aamir Khan's first film. That has been very, very popular over the years, over 30- 40 years. So I've once again, I've been fortunate, you know, that I've been part of some really wonderful films. Really iconic films.

Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. Buniyaad as a TV series. I've just had Special Ops release. I'm still part of Family Man. Yeah. But the old movies have, have really been something.

Technology has helped me survive, and a lot of other actors who were from my generation. Technology has helped us survive as actors. Because all these films that I talked to you about are only popular because they come on television. So generations see them. 

I was in a lift once in my building. There was a young girl and she couldn't have been more than about 11 or 12 years old. She was in school uniform. And we were in the lift. It was only her and me. And she was shuffling and looking at me. Finally, she picked up the courage and said to me, 'Uncle, I really like your acting'. 

So I looked at her and I said, thank you. But where have you seen me? And she said, I see you all the time. I've seen you in Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke. I've seen you in Baazigar. I've seen you in Ishq. I've seen you in Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. And she rattled off all these movies. So here is a 12 year old girl. Less than almost one tenth of my age. Not exactly, but close to it. I mean, she's a little girl. And she's seen all these movies. If there had not been television. She would never have seen these movies.

So that has been a huge bonus. Which has helped us connect with the younger generation. And that is why. I'm still getting work. That generation has seen those old movies. And I'll tell you that there was another generation of actors. Who after feature films where forgotten because there was their films did not come on television. 

So our generation missed out on the Bharat Bhushans and the and the K. L. Saigals and their whole generation to a large extent. Well, Dev Saab's films, Dev Saab and Dilip Saab have been restored for television, so they do come back But very little so we're a very fortunate generation.

And so I just remember actors who came in the eighties. I basically started my work in the early eighties. Into the eighties and nineties. We are very fortunate because television came. And satellite television came. Complete game changer. Today, people watch a lot of material.There's so much material in terms of sports, documentaries, foreign content. The amount of material and entertainment. So it's absolutely remarkable.

It's all technology. I'm blessed that I was in this era because all the technological leaps have come in the past forty five years. I grew up and there was a very small television set, but it was black and white.

From there, I'm doing this interview with you on a mobile phone. And we're nowhere near each other. Otherwise, people had to come and sit and the autocast would be there and they would write and then came the recorders. But usually, it was a person sitting there with a pen and paper and shorthand.

Q. You've mentioned it yourself that you've been around for a very long time, So what would be one piece of advice that you would give to someone who's a newcomer and wants to become an actor?

I am not in the advice business. Please do not listen to any of my advice because you would probably wind up being a wreck. I am kidding. I mean, I just am not that kind of person. It's very difficult and I'm not very comfortable with giving advice because the time that I grew up, my circumstances were very different from people today. 

Every individual has their own graph and circumstances. So what I say most likely will not be the kind of thing that would be helpful to anyone else. Because generations are different.

If I had to tell people because I suppose now people do ask me, please tell us something that can make our lives better. I'm very glad to part with some of the things that I feel are important not just as a professional, but also as a human being. 

One is to discipline yourself. You have to be able to develop things and work hard fine tuning whatever you have into something that not only allows you to make a good living, but keeps you happy. 

So I say pursue whatever it is that you feel that you are good at. Don't necessarily follow the norms that you have to become a doctor or you like that, do it. But to gain any kind of experience,  and I say that because my hobby became my profession.

Now I know that everybody is not as fortunate as me. They have to find ways of working. But whatever you do and whatever it is, I think the most important thing is do everything, the smallest of tasks, with complete conviction and with complete integrity and don't wait for rewards. 

I know it's very difficult. People today want an instant fix. Life is not about that. Life is about chipping away, doing one thing and doing it right and then getting more stuff and doing that right and having discipline about it.

You fine tune yourself into being an efficient and disciplined human being, which is easier said than done. So my advice is, keep working at it. And don't necessarily work for instant gratification.

If you make mistakes, be open about it. Don't ever hide mistakes. So you have to be very, very careful in this life to be completely candid with yourself.

Don't go into a situation into a cocoon or into this bubble where you feel that, you know, I have to achieve it today. Everything is going fine. I can't talk about my shortcomings. I can't talk about my mistakes. Talk about them. Be more open and the world will open up to you.

It is only then that you gain the confidence and you see success is when you understand where the shortfall is, where the pitfalls are. And that is how you go forward.

So process. I don't have a magic wand to go. Shoom. Do this and you will make it. No. You have to work every single day at what you're doing one step at a time.

And there you build a foundation of what hopefully will be a gratifying and a life as a professional, as a human being where you'll see some sort of happiness in this world, we all pursue. We all have the pursuit of happiness. Otherwise it's about trying and trying again and working hard and having a lot of discipline.

I've seen so many actors in my life who are maybe less talented than the others. They don't have the set of skills that somebody else may have. Somebody may have more set of skills. But I've seen those people succeed because of their commitment and their discipline.

Discipline for me begins with being on time. Punctuality. I believe being punctual and being on time is one of the best and one of the first and most important steps to a successful life and a happy life. The first signal you give by being on time is you respect the other person and that is the respect you will get back. That is basic courtesy, which I find needs to be understood and it should be inculcated it in your life.

We try to be an actor, but you have to understand that it takes a lot of preparation. People feel you can just become an actor. And then it's very disappointing because then when they try and do it, they realize that there's so much more to it.

I'm bewildered that if you wanna become a doctor, everybody says go do five years of MBBS. If you wanna become a lawyer, you have to go to law school. But if you want to become an actor, there is no such preparation.

My advice to those people is, don't wait for that one year. You will never make it. You have to have it, you have to want to do it. It has to be something that comes from within.

And you have to prepare. Acting is not a job where you can just walk or walk into it and say, I'm an actor. This is completely diluting it. You have to prepare. You have to understand what this job is about. You have to have the technical tools.

A lot of people come and say ‘I can feel it.I can feel the emotion'. You have to understand through training and the tools around you how you project those emotions. So it's a craft. There's no moving away from it.

You need a lot of flare and you need a lot of understanding. But along with that, you need the craft, which is a technical thing, which people don't realize. You have to understand how to implement this job.

Q. You're back in Special Ops. So what was it like?

Special Ops was released yesterday, and it is looking great. It is one of the best. I'm so proud to be in Special Ops because it's so well made. And it has such wonderful performances, including the leading man, Mr. KK Menon. He is absolutely outstanding. 

The whole series is so well done. And with Mr. Neeraj Pandey and the rest of the team. It's fantastic. I was watching it yesterday, and it's just like, it's a thriller. I've been watching it for the last two days and can't stop watching it. I have to be very honest. It's not often that I heap so much praise on something that I've done. But Special Ops deserves every bit of it.

There are some movies that I've done which I wish I hadn't done. And, I want to run away from them. But that's a story for another day. Today's Special Ops is out and it's a great one. It is basically, dealing with the subject that we are all going to be affected by,  which is artificial intelligence and cybercrime. It's very contemporary.

Q. Now talking about something off screen, I would like to know what is something that makes you really happy these days apart from acting? Something that you enjoy a lot, you like to do in your free time.

I like music, so I do my riyaz. I go for yoga. I  go out, I meet people. I like getting a good paycheck from my work so that I can go out and have a good time. You know, I have a mixed bag. I do all sorts of things. 

I've been doing it for so long that I don't think it's anything extraordinary, but I like to keep my body fit because in the profession that I'm in, I have always treated myself as a vehicle. I should keep myself as an actor as fit mentally as possible so that I'm able to work. So that people can come to me and say that you still have the physical and mental ability to be able to be part of a project because it is very strenuous.

I do exercise, I swim, I do yoga, I go out, I meet people, a bit of everything. In fact, now I have more spare time on my hands, so I'm really getting into my music. I've already put out one song on my Instagram. I want to do a few more songs. Generally, enjoying my days on the planet.

Q. So for the last question of the day, I would like to know that if you could surprise your audience with a totally unexpected role, what do you think it would be? Something that you've never done before.

There's a lot of roles I haven't done, but what I would really like to do is the singing part. It has always been my passion to be able to sing my own songs on the screen. When I came to the industry, I came from a musical theatrical background. So I thought that would translate very easily into Hindi films. It did not. 

Maybe because of the roles I was doing. I was the bad guy. Though in one film I did, kind of a song. I've done musical plays after that. I did Bombay Dreams in London where I sang my own songs on stage. Now I want to do it in films. I want a singing part where I sing my own song. That is what I want to surprise the audience with. Hopefully, it'll be a pleasant surprise.

Bio: 

Dilip Tahil is a veteran Indian actor whose five-decade career spans film, television, and theatre. A graduate of Sherwood College and Aligarh Muslim University, he began his screen acting with the 1974 classic Ankur and soon rose to prominence in memorable roles in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Baazigar (1993), Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (1993), Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), and many more .
On television, he’s known for iconic performances in Buniyaad, while internationally he appeared as Dan Ferreira on the BBC soap EastEnders. Recently, he joined the cast of Special Ops Season 2. 

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Interviewed by: Rupal Kargeti