Shahid Kapoor: Poised To Cash In On Everything That's His Due

Shahid Kapoor has that special, sometimes non-essential quality you find among Bollywood superstars: He has serious acting chops. But, film-wise, not much gets him excited, and not much has brought him the success he deserves. Months go by between movies. An arranged marriage announcement drops, a baby girl soon after. But this year, with collaborations with two intense, artistic minds – Vishal Bhardwaj and Sanjay Leela Bhansali Kapoor seems poised to cash in on everything that’s his due.

- Megha Shah

He walks leisurely, but with some weight, and there’s no denying that the passage of the last decade has left its imprint not just on his facial features but on his demeanour too. He looks nothing like the Aditya of Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met. A bristled mass of beard has taken over more than half his face. His eyes appear more deep-set. His long hair, tied in a top-knot, makes him look like an urban sophisticate rather than the boyish focus of a cultish group of mostly young girls who refer to each other as Shanatics. Still, it’s impossible not to note that, at 36, Shahid Kapoor looks pretty damn good.

In the basement of his modern house, which opens up right onto a Mediterranean-style promenade on Juhu Beach, is his man cave: exposed brick walls, hipster light bulbs, large rugs, a DJ station and a large giant iron hook dangling from the ceiling, the purpose of which I can’t figure out. There are squishy sofas, but Kapoor settles on the most uncomfortable chair, his back to the lone stream of daylight pouring in from the top of the stairs, shadows flirting with the crevices of his face, his smile polite, charming.

Kapoor’s 13-year career has been that of an actor determined to go beyond the emblematic romantic role so beloved by Bollywood’s leading men. Instead, he’s put together an oeuvre that’s an ongoing portrait of the male psyche in various modes of fragmentation and despair, from the mercurial (Kaminey) to the obnoxious (Udta Punjab) to the deranged (Haider).