Vijay Varma The Bad Guy In  Pink, Is Actually A Shy Guy From A Protective Family

For those wondering who is that scummy creature in Aniruddh Roychoudhuri’s  Pink who plays Rajveer’s friend Ankit , the answer is he is Vijay Varma , whose chilling portrayal of misogyny and male brutality is bound to give women nightmares for many weeks and months.Other women may find the actor’s obnoxious attitude attractive.

Laughs Vijay, “I’m yet to meet the junta . I’ve been busy since the release of Pink. Yeah, women like bad boys.  But this one that I play is really messed-up bad.So far the reaction I’ve got has mostly been , ‘You’re so good at being this bad.Don’t come near me. But you’re good!I got some very strong reaction from women after the screening.  I don’t know if any woman would want to date me or not after this role,haha.Jokes aside, I think in these modern times  people really can segregate actor from character.”

Varma admits when he was offered the part he didn’t expect such an impact.  “When I read the script I knew my character Ankit has some seriously strong scenes. My only worry was to get it right while shooting. And also to discover more behind the text. So yes, it was written with the intention to create terror and menace and I plunged into it wholeheartedly.”
Vijay admits he was apprehensive of playing such a sinister scumbag. “But I was equally lured. And equally challenged to do it. I took a day to mull over it and decided to take it up because I loved the script. And I deeply admire Shoojitda(producer Shoojit Sircar)  and Tonyda(director Aniruddh Roychoudhury).  So I had faith ki1980s and 90s ke villain jaisa nahi hoga which titillates male audience.”
Coming from conservative family Varma had to seek reference points for his characters predatory and crass behaviour towards women. “ I saw a lot of Roadies Delhi auditions and Splitsvilla to get the passive aggressiveness from people on these shows. Their behaviour and mindsets ,I tried to ape. I am from Hyderabad and have lived in a very protected family, almost like a girl child. But the male dominance and chauvinism were very readily available everywhere around us.”

Tapsee’s molestation sequence in a speeding car took herculian amounts of disciplined acting by Vijay to be successfully achieved. “Actually me and Tapsee never rehearsed that scene together before the shoot. She was preparing on her own and I was on my own. We however had met and done few cast readings of the film.When the shooting date came, it was my birthday 29th March. It was a running joke on the set , “Birthday ke dinaisa kaam kar raha hai toh saal bhar kya karega”
When it was time to shoot the scene Vijay proved up to it. “We were both well prepared mentally and got into that car with three cameras mounted.  We did that scene in precisely two takes. When Tonyda saw the monitor to see if it was good,he couldn’t bear to see the whole thing and stopped midway and said, ‘ We got it. We got it.’That’s it. It was done very effortlessly.  Both her and I were totally honest to the scene and did our job as actors. She’s a fab co-actor.”
Vijay Varma sees India as a nation of abusers. “We are a nation  that loves making heroes of people who abuse and offend and show aggression. We are fed that all the time. Big boss, Roadies Splitsvilla.Still I  haven’t seen anyone like my character Ankit in Pink  in real life. He’s total badass.”
Varma is not afraid of being typecast. “I’m not afraid of being typecast .I have some variety of work coming up next. Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Yaara where I play a flamboyant womanizer. And Raag Desh where I play a noble and ethical journalist in the 1940s.”