Indie filmmaker Aditya Kripalani, known for films like Tikli and Laxmi Bomb (2017) and Not Today (2022), has teamed up with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Chitrangada Satarupa to create I Am Not An Actor (Main Actor Nahin Hoon). The film recently had its world premiere at the 2025 Cinequest Film Festival in California.
I Am Not An Actor unfolds over a video call between two different worlds—India and Germany—and between two very different people: a puritanical actor (Chitrangada) and a 55-year-old retired banker who is also an aspiring actor (Nawazuddin). “Four years ago, during the pandemic, we were making a film called Father Like in Singapore,” says Aditya. “It had one actor coming from India and another who was supposed to be a Singaporean Chinese man. We prepped for the film, but due to COVID-19, the Singaporean government refused to let the Indian actor in.”
To work around this production hurdle, Aditya wrote a new script in just seven days. “I wrote something in which actors wouldn’t need to travel. The seed of the story came from there. I Am Not An Actor originated out of that necessity,” he adds. The makers released a seven-minute scene from the film on Instagram, featuring Nawazuddin and Chitrangada enacting a scene while sitting in front of their laptops as part of an acting workshop. It’s ironic and amusing to see a seasoned actor like Nawazuddin portraying a rookie. “He is a very intelligent person,” says Aditya. “He doesn’t need to be directed. He is more instinctive. I actually directed him through Chitrangada. If I wanted something out of a scene, I would tell Chitrangada to say something that wasn’t in the script, and he would react accordingly.”
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, like Manoj Bajpayee, is an artist entirely dedicated to his craft. In a recent interview, director Anurag Kashyap expressed his frustration with young actors, saying that they are more focused on going to the gym and PR than attending acting workshops. “The biggest problem with new actors today, at least those on OTT, is that they are desperate to land that one series that will give them leverage,” says Aditya. “A single show that brings them fame and money, a cash cow which comes every two to three years. Once they achieve that, they become lazy. A survival instinct, a hunger, an insecurity—these are essential for an artist to take risks. And only by taking risks can great work be created.”
The current landscape of Hindi films and series is the complete opposite of “risk-taking.” It is dominated by run-of-the-mill, complacent ideas whose execution is dictated by algorithms. As a result, there is a lack of content that feels truly cutting-edge. “The answer lies in more middle-of-the-road films,” suggests Aditya. “Movies that are neither entirely arthouse nor completely commercial. We need more films like Superboys of Malegaon, Laapataa Ladies, and 12th Fail. Sean Baker (director of Anora) said in his Oscar acceptance speech that we need to ‘go back to theatres’. Since the pandemic, that theatre-going habit has faded away.”
But isn’t that also because going to cinemas has become too expensive? People would rather wait for a middle-of-the-road film to drop on OTT than take a financial risk in theatres. The director responds, “Going to the big screen is a collective experience. You laugh, cry, and feel emotions together. We haven’t stopped going to temples to pray, have we? Cinema is also a kind of religion, and the big screen is its temple.”
Aditya further explains that empowering the cinephile community could be the key to reviving cinema. “OTT platforms have sidelined them. They only care about views and subscriptions. But so many people went to watch All We Imagine As Light in theatres, proving that a cinephile audience exists and needs to be nurtured,” he says. “Filmmakers and film lovers need to come together to revive Hindi cinema.”
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