Meet Alia Bhatt's trainer from Raazi

Jaideep Ahlawat talks about his role as Khalid Mir, Alia Bhatt’s mentor in the upcoming Raazi
Jaideep Ahlawat as Khalid Mir
Jaideep Ahlawat as Khalid Mir

The Alia Bhatt-starrer Raazi’s trailer has already created quite some noise with its promising narrative. Though the story revolves around Sehmath the central character, played by Alia, among other significant roles is that of Khalid Mir, Sehmath’s trainer and head of an intelligence agency.

Jaideep Ahlawat, who has earlier worked in films such as Gangs of Wasseypur, Raees, Gabbar is Back and Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam, plays the role of Khalid. Jaideep can be easily identified in the Raazi trailer, as the man who keeps an eagle eye on Alia and points out her minutest of errors. “Khalid is intelligent, thinks fast, speaks less, and shows little expression on his face. Nobody knows what is going on in his mind,” says the actor about his role. Though Jaideep is 36 years old, he had to look at least 10 years older to play the role. “We had to work a lot on my look. I had to appear like a 45-year-old man who is mature and grounded. The first thing Meghna (Gulzar, the director) asked me to do was to start speaking slowly because I usually speak fast. It took me nearly two months to start talking slowly,” explains Jaideep.

In the film, as he plays the head of intelligence, the actor was required to know everything about being a spy. To this Jaideep says that during college he wanted to be an army officer, so he had learnt firing. Other aspects of physical appearance for the role came naturally to him. “But I had to read everything about the 1971 war and I did watch a few secret services films of which Munich is my favourite and it helped me a lot to understand how a secret agent works,” offers Jaideep. 

What makes Raazi all the more interesting for Jaideep is the fact that two women — Meghna behind the camera as the director and Alia as his co-star on screen — have worked with him closely. “It was great working with them. Both are highly creative individuals. With Meghna as the director I felt I was in safe hands. Alia is open to suggestions and comes with certain vulnerability, in the sense that she doesn’t carry her star status to the sets. She says this is what I have to offer, if there’s more I can do, tell me. She is like a child,” says the actor who will be next seen in Bombay Talkies 2.

ayeshatabassum@newindianexpress.com
@aishatax

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