Junaid Khan, who has proved his acting metal in the film Maharaj on Netflix and his Bollywood debut Loveyappa, is deeply rooted in the world of theatre, from where he truly found his inspiration to act. Son of Superstar Aamir Khan, this star kid loves to stay rooted in his craft. Junaid shares his theatrical journey, including his recent plays Faezeh Jalali’s ‘Shikhandi’ and ‘Runaway Bride’ showcased at NCPA Mumbai last weekend.
Born into a family of actors and filmmakers, Junaid was a shy kid and took to acting much later during his graduation daya from HR College Mumbai. He says, “In my college days, I saw people acting in front of the audience, and so I was attracted to it since I would not be able to do that being a very shy person.”
He added,” I feel theatre is a purer art form, and it’s great fun. Even my dad did theatre in his early years before Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak became a hit. He did a few plays with Mahender Joshi and even assisted him backstage. His first play was a Gujarati play, which happened by chance as one guy had fallen sick last minute, and Dad was asked to learn the lines. That’s how his acting journey started way back in 1983.”
Eventually, Junaid decided to go to the US to study theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for 3 years, which included a two-year program and one year in the repertory.He says, about his initial grooming, “We had a fantastic faculty there including the veteran Broadway Actor and Director Tim Landfield, Brenda Beck, Diana Brown, Jamie Nicoles, Rob Han and Perry Hart. Our repertory director liked a bunch of modern plays, and so we did ‘Anna in the Tropics’ Play by Nilo Cruz, which is more of contemporary American theatre.”
Sighting differences between the theatre of the West and the Indian theatre, he says, “Music and Movements are an integral part of the Indian culture of theatre, which is not prevalent in the West, as they either have the musical broadways or the plays.”
Throwing light on his initiation into the world of theatre in India, he said,” I came back from the US in 2017 and did plays across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta and Guwahati. My first play in Mumbai was ‘Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Quasar Thakore Padamsee, in which the lead was played by Arundhati Nag in 2017. I did 3 plays with Faezeh Jalali; the first play I did with her was ‘Farming Story’ in 2017, then Bone of Contention’ in 2019 and then ‘Strictly Unconventional’. In 2019, I worked in the play ‘A Few Good Men’ directed by Nadir Khan, while I got to work with Rajat Kapoor and Neil Bhoopalam.”
Talking about the most challenging roles in his theatrical journey so far Junaid tells,” It was a role in the play ‘strictly unconventional’ directed by Faezeh Jalali which is a series of mini acts about unconventional relationships, in which I played two characters one of which was of a transwoman which was quite a challenge yet fun, especially for the make-up, which took an hour to get the look.”
The play ‘Shikhandi’ -The Story of the In-Betweens’ is a tongue-in-cheek comedy focusing on the character Amba in the Epic Mahabharata who reincarnated as Shikhandi.The play questions the very identity of the character, written and directed by Faezeh Jalali. The play is a mix of mythology and fiction, while it defies conventional gender roles and sexual orientations with a more fluid view of sexuality and gender than is often presented. The play shows an exchange of sex between Yaksha and Shikhandi, which never happened as per Mahabharat. Faezeh Clarified,”The sex exchange is fictional in the play but Yaksha did give Shikhandi his male genitals for a night to satisfy his wife.The play follows the mythology, but it is more of a perspective on it. Also, Mahabharat has a lot of small characters, which I wanted to showcase in the play.”
Shikhandi opened in 2017 with an original cast, but after the pandemic, since many actors moved on to different cities, the play was re-casted, and Junaid became a part of it, playing multiple characters of Bhishma, Dhrupad and Bhima.
So how difficult is it to switch characters effortlessly? Junaid replied, “In fact, to attain an understanding of the traditional Indian theatre and dance forms, I did some workshops with Venuji in Kudiyattam (which is the most ancient form of theatre in Kerela). Venuji once told me that in the West, the individual becomes the character, and that is their acting. But, in the Indian classical form of theatre, the Individual becomes the actor and the actor performs the characters. So there is a transition where you are aware of your surroundings, the sound, and who’s coming next and then that actor becomes the character. This approach helps, when you are jumping from character to character, as you don’t have time to get into the character, you have to become that immediately and that school of thought kind of helps.”
The play Shikhandi has an amalgamation of Contemporary languages English, Hindi, along with Traditional Sanskrit Texts in the script, since there were contemporary English viewers. Also, since it was initially hard to enact certain gestures as per the traditional texts, the contemporary texts helped in their expression.The music is very authentic according to the era composed by Satish Krishnamurthy, who used traditional Indian musical instruments. The play has a strong base of Indian classical dance forms namely Kudiyattam, Kalari Yakshagana and Bharatnatyam,on which the entire cast was trained for 2 months.
The script of Shikhandi was initially semi-developed and it took 6-8 months to work on the scenes and choreography with the original cast which included Meher Achary, who played Shikandi, Nikhil Murli, who played Bhishma and Bheem along with Shrishti Srivastava (Draupadi) and Karan Desai. When Meher and Murali left, there was a quick transition and Fauzeh stepped in as Shikhandi and Junaid joined as Bhishma, Bheem and Dhrupad along with Tushar Pandey, Akash Gosalkar and others.
Faezeh on casting Junaid in Shikhandi says, “For the role of Bhishma and Bhima I wanted someone tall, large-headed and with a good voice as Nikhil had all of those qualities. After him the next tall person I knew was Junaid and so I casted him, while I knew his strengths, since he had already worked with me on three plays.”
Runaway Bride, written and directed by Faezeh, is contemporary play inspired from a real life incident. The play showcases the hustle, bustle and absolute chaos of an inter-religious wedding. Junaid plays a South Indian Hindu Groom Rahul Shetty, who’s all set to marry a Muslim girl Aminah Amin. The mother of the groom, Anju, and the bride, Razia, who are best friends and past lovers, elope from the mandap on the wedding day. Then begins a frantic search, leading to unexpected pairing and opening of shocking secrets. The play is very spontaneous, and fun to watch with a pinch of love Jihad and Hindu- Muslim cultural comparatives handled with care and fun, which boasts of its superb direction. The play has a huge cast including Reshma Shetty, Nimisha Sirohi, Anoushka Zaveri, Prince Kanwal, Priyasha Bharadwaj and others.
Junaid’s tells about his role, “This play opened in the Prithvi Festival in 2024. It’s a fun play, and my role in the play is slightly an offshoot of a character I played in ‘Strictly Unconventional’ from the piece ‘A Perfect Love Story”, where I played a groom. We rehearsed for two months for this play because it needs too much synchronicity as it has many characters.”
While, Eid being just around the corner, Junaid signs out with his childhood memories, “Eid was always at my grandmother’s house with lots of deserts, food and money. We used to remind Dad beforehand because if he would remember would give us a good sum as Eidi, or else my Mom or Kiran would give us, but that would be much less…chuckles!
