25 Years of Abhishek Bachchan: How the Actor Arrived, Strived, Survived and Stayed

In Shoojit Sircar’s I Want To Talk (2024), Abhishek Bachchan plays a man who refuses to die. Based on a true story, Bachchan’s Arjun Sen is a stubborn cancer survivor who goes through more than 20 surgeries. The California-based marketing executive does this while navigating a complex family dynamic. There’s a wry pragmatism about Arjun’s suffering, though; the film is marked by his almost-mundane acceptance of hospital visits, reports, setbacks, strokes and other complications. One might assume he’s going through the motions, but this stillness becomes the language of his endurance. No melodrama, no meltdowns: just a man silently grieving — and adjusting to — the constant rearrangement of his identity. It’s moving to watch because, at some strange level, Arjun’s journey becomes an auto-fictional metaphor for Bachchan’s. It’s a definitive mid-career performance. The actor’s mentality informs the character’s physicality.

For 25 years, Abhishek Bachchan has arrived, strived, survived and stayed. Heavy as the surname has been, it has brought him opportunities — and a self-deprecatory nature that’s struck a chord in an age of closed-loop narcissism and PR strategies. Regardless of the results, there’s a sincerity and pragmatism about his craft that have offset the pressures of his heritage. The ambition to be better is shaped by an inherent refusal to be written off. It may sound like I’m cushioning my words, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the way he’s gone about the job. There’s been an almost-routine acceptance of criticism and comparisons. Before nepotism became a curse word in the social media age, he humanised the subculture by not only persevering through various shifts in Hindi cinema, but also adjusting to — and inventing — a distinct brand of middle-stardom.

Since his debut in the high-profile Refugee (2000), the actor went on to have a prolific but mixed first decade. He had the odd critical success with lead roles in Bunty Aur Babli, Bluffmaster!, Delhi-6 and especially Guru. But there were far more misses than hits, largely because mainstream Bollywood back then didn’t know what to do with those that they didn’t consider ‘solo-hero material’. Given his bloodline and the relentless scrutiny, though, it’s almost lyrical that Bachchan did some of his best work when the focus wasn’t entirely on him; when the spotlight could be shared. He’s been better at blending into a cast than having to carry the burden of expectations and preconceived notions. In this context, his roles have extended across genres and generations.

One of my early favourites is his performance as Rishi Talwar, a doting nice-guy husband whose wife has an affair in Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). Gutsy a film as it was for its time — with stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji humanising ‘unfaithful’ characters that were often relegated to the moral margins of melodrama — it was Bachchan who delivered the most mercurial of moments. Rishi’s reaction to his wife’s confession is part-grief (for losing his father), part-rage (for losing himself) and part-heartbreak (for losing his marriage); Bachchan nails that raw cocktail of vulnerability and volume. The explosion is almost scary because it’s an implosion grasping at straws; the effect is amplified by the fact that nobody anticipated the soft-spoken actor to become an angry young man. The pain on Rishi’s face is unfiltered, like he doesn’t know how to handle difficult emotions after being sheltered by privilege.

Bachchan’s role in Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan (2018) more than a decade later straddled the same genre of husband-material martyrs: again a jilted-but-mature partner struggling to deal with the main-character energy of the conflicted protagonist. His Robbie here gets a happier ending than Rishi did, a full-circle moment for both actor and character after years of playing third wheels who never got their due. Robbie’s breakdown, too, is more subdued in comparison, with Bachchan exhibiting the sort of adult temper that might have mutated into manipulative man-child (or sociopath) energy in a lesser film. Often accused of not acting hard enough, it took a considerable amount of restraint to ground a toxic love story that deconstructs itself into a marriage story. For an actor whose dialogue delivery made filmmakers write silences and searing gazes into his roles, it says something that these characters employed the inadequacy of language to express their hurt.

I also like his second-fiddle masculinity in Yash Raj Films’ Dhoom franchise as honest cop ACP Jai Dixit, a hero in a highly profitable film series designed to platform the villains. Bachchan remains strait-laced without being dull, repeatedly ceding the spotlight to — but shining in the reflections of — headliners like Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan. Ditto for his subdued humanity as a flawed dad and estranged husband in Paa (2009), R. Balki’s monument to the late-career genius of superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Abhishek’s rendition of Amol, an ambitious politician who chose his career over his family only to belatedly connect with his progeria-afflicted son, subverts the one-note image of absent Indian fathers. His ability to pull off an unlikely redemption arc as ‘Paa’ — the fictional parent of his real-life parent — stabilises an imperfect film.

This role-reversal gimmick came on the back of his Michael Corleone-coded Shankar Nagre in Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar (2005) and its sequel, Sarkar Raj (2008). In the formidable shadow of Amitabh Bachchan’s politico-don Subhash “Sarkar” Nagre, Abhishek’s transformation from the NRI-returned family-business-skeptic son to a brooding successor is the backbone of the mood piece. Ranbir Kapoor played a similar character in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti, but there was always something urgent about Abhishek’s breaking-bad arc; it was like watching an heir-inapparent come of age in an environment that turned privilege into power.

One of the first signs of Bachchan’s endurance came when Mani Ratnam cast him against type in Yuva (2004) as Lallan Singh, a Bihari goon-for-hire wreaking (monosyllabic) havoc in Kolkata. The challenge of playing a character far removed from their reality is always a litmus test for those from blue-blooded film families; the ‘surprise’ of seeing Abhishek excel as Lallan felt necessary, because nobody expected him to resurface as a rugged antagonist after a slew of failed love stories. It was the first instance of him stealing the show in an ensemble, just as he did in Ratnam’s Raavan (2010), a perspective-altering and poetic reimagining of the Ramayana. As a Robin Hood-styled Naxalite wrestling with ideas of revenge and revolutions, Bachchan doesn’t overcook the role to keep up with the ‘cinema’ of the film. Some of the film’s best scenes revolve around his character’s ethical arm-wrestle between mythology and modernity.

His relationship with grey characters is an interesting one. A lot of his second innings — coinciding with the sanitised risks of the OTT era — feature these darker shades. There is no dearth of desire to be versatile and evolve with the times. His performances in Bob Biswas, The Big Bull, Ghoomer and two seasons of Breathe: Into the Shadows are guilty of flattening psychologically layered roles, but there’s also a Ludo (2020) as a reminder that the more experienced directors know how to use and channelise his intent. I’m not a fan of Bachchan’s goofy trysts with comedy — from back-in-the-day Dostana to Happy New Year to Bol Bachchan to the recent Housefull 5. But what Farah Khan managed to summon in that fleeting and funny awards-scene cameo of Om Shanti Om (2007) again suggested that it’s just about the right film-maker. If anything, Bachchan was the original manifestation of a growing belief that every actor has the firepower, but they’re only as talented as the choices that a film industry imposes on them.

In that sense, it’s fitting that Bachchan’s recent filmography as a single dad came in a pair of opposites: Sircar’s I Want To Talk and Remo D’Souza’s Be Happy. The latter is an example of a simplistic commercial formula, but it’s the former that reveals — and taps into — the cumulative spirit of 25 years of stoicism and stamina. The film ends with Arjun Sen not just surviving, but matter-of-factly continuing his banter with a doctor who’s learned to accept his quirks and curiosity. The reluctant hero doesn’t make a big deal out of defying medical science and societal expectations. He trusts us to recognise his climb without having to flaunt it. He just talks, walks, and ever so often, walks the talk.