Exclusive | Ali Fazal shares tips for Hollywood survival: 'Don't be shy of giving auditions'

FOr the number one clip ever so, worker muhammad ali Fazal has portrayed the role of a cop on a mission in filmmaker Prosit Roy’s crime thriller, Raakh. For him, it was the ‘vardi’ (uniform) which worked as a good build-up. Talking about the prep during his visit to Delhi, the actor tells us, “A lot of workshops, a lot of readings that I needed to do for myself to understand how they (the makers) see this world from the get-go. That was very important. It's a cop role, vardi hai, which also was a great lead-up because I was like ‘costume trial kab hoga, costume trial kab hoga’. And of course, that first day arrived and I realised, ‘Fit nahi aa raha… Something wasn't fitting right, nahi ye Prosit ko shayad pasand nahi aayega.’ It's been a slow and steady puzzle arriving at it.” Ali’s performance in the series has managed to impress not only the audience but also his wife, actor Richa Chadha, who recently shared that she wants to walk in his footsteps, when asked about her Hollywood plans. Sharing tips to other actors trying to survive in the West, Ali shares, “Don’t be shy of giving auditions. It’s one of the most humbling experiences. A lot of actors have this misconception, ‘I’ll go there, find an agency, and then life will start.’ It’s the other way around actually. You have to get through the auditions, land one part, and then the agencies come and get you. It works a little differently as opposed to India where you get under an umbrella and then wait.” Ali is among the few Indian actors who have successfully built an international portfolio, with projects such as Victoria & Abdul (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and Kandahar (2023) to his credit. After Raakh, streaming on Prime Video, Ali is set to reprise his role of Guddu Pandit in Mirzapur the film, based on web series of the same name. When asked which role he enjoyed playing more as an actor, Guddu in Mirzapur or Sub-Inspector Jayprakash Jatav in Raakh, the actor shares, “Guddu has a very flamboyant world, and within their own worlds nobody's thinking, ‘Yaar main apni life mein hero nahi hoon, main apni life mein galat hoon.’ Everybody's right in their own story. So that already comes with this fun-packed thing and I just finished the film, it’s another kind of a thrill.” This was also the first time that the actor joined forces with Sonali Bendre. Describing his co-star, Ali told us, “She's outstanding and she's a very, very giving actor. I just kept staring at her. In the middle of the shot, I found myself just staring at her.”