Shekhar Kapur shares his brief to Amrish Puri for playing Mogambo: ‘A Shakespearean character in a village nautanki’

Shekhar Kapur shares what he told to Amrish Puri before he began working on his character, Mogambo, in Mr India.

Filmaker Shekhar Kapur has shared an interesting detail about one of his iconic character, Mogambo that was essayed by the late actor Amrish Puri. Amrish played the villain in Shekhar’s 1987 film Mr India.

Moggambo remains one of the most iconic characters of Amrish Puri’s career.

Shekhar tweeted Wednesday afternoon, “And when Amrishpuriji asked how to play Mugambo, I merely said he should play Mugambo as a Shakespearean Character. But as if he was playing Shakespeare in a Village Nautanki to 11 year old kids who had never heard of Shakespeare. Aur phir Mogambo Kyush Hua!”

A fan responded to the tweet saying, “Ha ha mogambo ...and that brief, that whisper in his ear... gave us the biggest villain of all time. He was Beating heart dil khush villain, childlike, lovable too.” Shekhar was quick to comment, “Doesn’t Mogambo remind you of a certain President of a Western Nation that also preens when he is praised?”

Upon another fan’s suggestion that Amrish would have fitted well for role of Abou Fatma in his The Four Feathers (essayed by Djimon Hounsou), Shekhar responded praising the original actor for the role and wrote, “Abu Fatma in four feathers was African.. and Djimon Honsou was brilliant in it. Looked completely African too. Rember him in Stielberg’s Amistasd? When I was doing Mandela, Djimon was going to play the Young Mandela, and Morgan Freeman the elder Mandela.”

Mr India featured Ashok Kumar, Anil Kapoor and Sridevi and traced the journey of a young man who stumbles upon an experimental device for invisibility and uses it to bridge the gap between the black-marketeers of the town and the poor people. Anil essayed the role of the young man and Ashok was the scientist who invented the invisibility device. Sridevi played a chirpy journalist in the film.

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