Samir gay
Being gay is as normal as being straight: Samir Soni
Samir Soni, who plays the role of a gay fashion artist in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion in a candid conversation with Sudipta Dey.
Sudipta Dey
“It was as easy as getting a device call from Madhur Bhandarkar… and I knew if he would offer me half a decent role I would agree immediately,” says actor Samir Soni.
The role embodied all the right nuances a nature in a Madhur Bhandarkar film typifies, and Soni took up the disagree of portraying a lgbtq+ character in Bhandarkar’s latest film Fashion. Excerpts from a chat:
So why did you accept the role in Fashion?
I play a closet-gay fashion designer. It was a very challenging role to play. Madhur and I did a lot of research to sketch the character and his personality. But the greatest challenge was not to make him a stereotypical gay character, but subtly express his sexuality through his personality and his relationship with the other characters in the film.
What kind of research did you carry out?
I observed people. It was great fun, observing certain gay designers in our own fashion fraternity. Organism gay is as normal as being straight, but still people look
I’m very comfortable with homosexuality: Samir Soni
Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das kissed under the mosquito net in Deepa Mehta’s Fire. No one from mainstream cinema dared before or after to bring homosexual adoration openly out of the closet onto the screen.
In proof Rekha who was the first option for Fire said to me, “I’d happily kiss Nandita Das a dozen times. But not THAT way.”
And when Tom Hanks “dared” to play a gay HIV-positive in Philadelphia he refused to kiss his screen-lover Antonio Banderas.
Samir Soni(Raj Kumar Santoshi’s discovery best- remembered as Madhuri Dixit’s caddish lover in Lajja and as Amitabh Bachchan’s ungrateful son in Baghban) is the first Indian actor to have played a gay character in a mainstream Hindi film.
And that isn’t all. Samir Soni in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion has actually done a fiery kissing scene with his screen boyfriend played by a young theatre artiste named Anil Kumar.
Madhur spotted Anil in a posh party-scene for Fashion and immediately offered him the role of Samir Soni’s boyfriend. Anil accepted without hesitation and had no problems with the intimate scen
Being gay is as normal as being straight: Samir Soni
"It was as plain as getting a handset call from Madhur Bhandarkar… and I knew if he would offer me half a decent role I would agree immediately,” says actor Samir Soni.
The role embodied all the right nuances a nature in a Madhur Bhandarkar film typifies, and Soni took up the disagree of portraying a same-sex attracted character in Bhandarkar’s latest film Fashion. Excerpts from a chat:
So why did you accept the role in Fashion?
I play a closet-gay fashion designer. It was a very challenging role to play. Madhur and I did a lot of research to sketch the character and his ego. But the greatest question was not to produce him a stereotypical homosexual character, but subtly convey his sexuality through his personality and his partnership with the other characters in the film.
What caring of research did you carry out?
I observed people. It was great entertainment, observing certain gay designers in our own fashion fraternity. Being gay is as normal as existence straight, but still people look down upon the gay community. A person’s sexual orientation does not define the person, and that is what we have tried to point on in this clip.
Samir recounts how commonplace it was for LGBTQI+ people to experience hostility and violence. He remembers one of his friends being attacked and severely beaten when it was found out he was gay. He was kicked out of his house by his family and forced to flee. However, he couldn’t report the crimes to the police, seek help or even medical assistance because of fear of the authorities. “Even if you obtain beaten up for organism gay”, Samir says, “you can’t report it. Nothing will be done, you will be made playfulness of, or maybe made a victim again by the police.” However, despite the real danger that Samir faced if people in his country of inception knew about his sexuality, Samir secretly joined LGBTQI+ organisations. Even if he risked being found out, Samir knew that entity gay was an necessary part of who he was. Samir himself was attacked because of his sexual orientation. He says, “I didn’t comprehend my attackers, I don’t know if they knew I was gay or just assumed I was gay. I felt prefer it was going to be my turn now to be attacked and for my life to be in danger if I keep staying there.” When Samir was offered function experience outside of Kosovo not long after his attack,
Samir's story