A great hero needs a great villain, goes a popular saying and when we talk about Bollywood, all you need is Danny Denzongpa – the ultimate baddie. Handsome, poised, and full of vigour, Denzongpa is the ultimate villain of the Hindi film industry.
Ruddy complexion, glossy mane, suave and fit, he reinvented the screen baddie. ‘Dharmatma’, ‘Agneepath’, ‘Hum’, ‘Khuda Gawah’, ‘Devta’, ‘Barsaat’, ‘China Gate’, and more recently ‘Enthiran/Robot’, ‘Baby’, ‘Naam Shabana’… Danny’s characters were never incidental in his films. They were catalysts to the drama.
In a freewheeling interview with Outlook’s Eshita Bhargava, Danny Denzongpa talks about his journey in the industry, playing a villain, if he got his dues as an actor, his movie ‘Frozen’, and much more
Excerpts from the interview:
In the recent past, you have been a part of movies like ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘Bang Bang’ (2014), ‘Baby’ (2015), ‘Naam Shabana’ (2017). But it has been a long since you have had a full-fledged role in a film…
I think you feel that way because people are used to seeing me in powerful roles, but for ‘Baby’ we shot according to the script and I had maximum scenes. Having said that, there has been a gap, but during that time I was shooting for ‘Bioscopewala’ and then I took up ‘Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi’.
Do you attribute your missing-in-action to lack of good scripts, interesting characters and films?
Many offers that came to me were conventional roles, which I had played before. Most new directors have that image of me from the movies, which I did in the ’80s and ’90s. That was too monotonous and I wanted to do something different.
Danny Denzongpa as Kancha Cheena
For most of your career, you have played the antagonist/negative roles – in your view how different is it for an actor to reprise a positive role?
I found my approach to the positive role no different. I have always looked at them as character parts.