Role Call

Actor and producer Vivek Gomber is kicking off September in high gear with a film, The Disciple, in competition at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival. He’ll also be seen in Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy, dropping on Netflix later this year. Arun Janardhan caught up with the Arsenal fan who’s been waiting in the wings for a decade and a half – and whose time is now

- Arun Janardhan

It’s taken 16 years, says Vivek Gomber, for his calendar to have back-to-back bookings for acting jobs. These years have been filled with auditions, a segue into production, at least one unfulfilled project, lots of hope, learning, personal losses and, sometimes, just waiting. Add to that six (and counting) months of pandemic-induced lockdown.

While one of his latest acting assignments, the award-winning Sir, was lined up for release before the sudden closure of cinemas in response to the coronavirus, Gomber is all set for two more ambitious projects to see the light of day: Mira Nair’s mini-series A Suitable Boy, which released in the UK last month, and later in the year, Alankrita Shrivastava-Bornila Chatterjee’s web series Bombay Begums; both of which will stream on Netflix here.

But what’s currently sending Gomber into 20-second meltdowns, because he is just so happy, is his second venture as a producer, with director Chaitanya Tamhane. The Disciple, set in the world of classical music, will be in competition at this month’s Venice International Film Festival. He is unable to share the joy directly with people, like Tamhane or his mother or his girlfriend, actress Maya Sarao, because he is trapped, like everyone else, at home and on a Zoom screen, caught between euphoria, relief and anxiety.

“I want to take a moment, but there’s no time,” he says over a video chat. “I can’t drop the ball now…” He pauses for a bit, an unusual break from his normal style of urgent monologues. He wipes his eyes and looks into the inanimate screen. “The stress in these four years [while making the film] has been huge.”