It’s been a comically extreme year for Arjun Rampal. He played the hateful Pakistani antagonist, a killer of kaafirs, in Dhurandhar: The Revenge — the biggest Indian blockbuster of the year and an adored nationalist pamphlet.
But Rampal, now 52, was also excellent in the sobering human rights drama Satluj, one of the most administratively persecuted films in recent memory. The Punjab-set film was stuck with the censor board for years and was shadow-dropped on streaming before being removed in two days. Journalists who reviewed it in that short window felt like they were inspecting contraband, hunched in a dark barracks somewhere as sirens blared and shells exploded overhead.
As if to hit a mean between his previous two films, Rampal plays a cop — a wintry investigator named Sikandar Singh — in the ZEE5 mystery Blind Game, which isn't likely to rock any boats, Indian or Pakistani. The modest hilltown thriller is a posthumous release for its director Sangeeth Sivan, who passed away in 2024, and also features Priyamani.
In a conversation with THR India, Rampal spoke about completing 25 years in the movies, the unfair treatment meted out to Satluj, and the art of staying detached…
I recently met someone who kept waxing lyrical about your character Major Iqbal in Dhurandhar. There's no accounting for what people respond to in a film.
(laughs). If a character can evoke any kind of emotion, and you’re not just watching it from an exterior point of view, then I feel it has worked. It could evoke anything — happiness, anger, love, or any other emotion. It could be through an expression, an action, or just anything that you take away. I’ve had several experiences where people come up and talk about certain characters I’ve played, particularly after Rock On!!, which evoked some very strong discussions. Raajneeti did the same, Dhurandhar has done the same, and Om Shanti Om did that too. There were also people who really connected with Chakravyuh. The character of D-Day resonated with a lot of people as well.
A lot of people still watch Dil Hai Tumhaara, a 2002 family melodrama with you, Preity Zinta, Jimmy Shergill and Rekha. It re-runs often on television.
Yes, Dil Hai Tumhaara and Dil Ka Rishta. Both these films are still watched. A lot of people tell me that, especially when I’m on a flight and they come up to speak to me.
Blind Game was the last film directed by Sangeeth Sivan, a veteran of Malayalam cinema who also made many Hindi films. How would you place the film's genre?
It’s a crime mystery thriller more than an action thriller. It has a lot of twists and turns and is constantly evolving. You never really know where it’s going. Unfortunately, this was Sangeeth’s last film. He passed away in 2024, and he was really excited about this one. He even wanted to make a sequel and had, in fact, started writing it. He was so enthusiastic about the film. He’s very good with this kind of material, and also brings a certain quirkiness and humour to it, which are woven into the underlying fabric of the story. That’s the kind of filmmaker he was. In fact, all the Sivans are quirky. That makes the film a little more special, given that it was Sangeeth’s last.
You did your schooling in Deolali and Kodaikanal. Though you live by the coast now, do you enjoy shooting in the hills?
Oh, I love the mountains. I love nature. I’m a nature person; I need to be around it. In fact, just yesterday, Gabriel (Demetriades, Rampal's wife) and I were discussing where we should go for our next holiday. We both wanted to get closer to nature rather than visit a city or a busy place.
Shooting for Blind Game in Manali was lovely. I was staying at a really nice resort with a good gym and a beautiful river flowing right past our cottage. We would go on these lovely walks, and the whole experience was beautiful. The air is crisp and chilly, and you can wear sweaters and jackets and move around. It’s always more exciting than being confined to a studio or a set.
You've finished 25 years in the movies. How do you look back at filmography?
I am yet to adopt a perspective on my own work, to be honest. I don’t revisit my movies. In fact, I hardly watch any of them. Once a film is out, it’s out of your system. Some bring you a lot of success; some don’t bring you as much. But you can’t sit there and try to analyse things or get into all of that. Maybe I’ll do that at a later stage in my life. I look more ahead than behind because that’s how I am as a person. So It’s a bit of a premature question for me right now.
Really?
Yeah, It’s only been 25 years. We have another 25 and more to go.
But I'm sure with a film like Daddy (2017) — which you produced and starred in, and which did not succeed in theatres — the emotional investment was much more?
I was not only emotionally invested in that project, but financially too (laughs). And when a film like that doesn’t work, it is a setback on multiple levels. But you can’t go into a dark space because of that. I believe every film has its own destiny. You can’t push it beyond a certain point.
Was it the hardest to bounce back from?
Daddy was tough, definitely. I was also going through a lot in my personal life at that point. It was a difficult period, but I think it was also a very redefining arc in my trajectory so far. So I would say maybe that’s the one. It’s natural for everybody to experience that. You must experience it. There’s no fun without it.
One thing I've learned over the last 25 years is to just let things go. Don’t get stuck on anything. Don’t get too caught up in your successes, and don’t let anything that people define as failures put you down. That’s how I approach my work.
What would you advise young actors starting out now, and who may be feeling insecure and paranoid about their place in the film industry?
My only advice to anybody going through that, based on whatever experiences I’ve had, is to keep it real. It’s very simple. Just keep it real. Be a real guy. Be yourself. There’s only one you. And keep it simple. The minute you start overthinking things, it will pull you into a space that isn’t going to be positive.
How did you feel when Satluj was taken off after being released online in India?
It’s really sad what happened with Satluj. I think it deserved a lot more than what it was given. It was a film that had its heart in the right place.
I have no idea (why the film ran into trouble). It’s based on incidents that did occur in the past. Everything about it is factual. Nothing has been made up. It wasn’t promoting any agenda. It was essentially about how handing over too much power to one person, and placing it in the wrong hands, can lead to these kinds of situations. That’s part of our history. The message was simply to make people a little more aware so that we don’t repeat such mistakes.
So I didn’t really see why it would have been punished so severely. But I guess there are people who are more on the ground and perhaps they felt that it could rile up the situation in a particular state. Maybe they didn’t want to rub salt into wounds that haven’t quite healed.
What can you tell us about Operation Ganga with Malayalam legend Mohanlal? The film dramatises the the rescue missions undertaken by India during the Ukraine war.
It’s a very interesting project with multiple languages. There’s Malayalam, a bit of Telugu, some Tamil, Russian, English and Hindi. Furthermore, the team is extremely talented and diverse. Our DOP is Polish. Sea-Young Oh, the action director from South Korea who also worked on Dhurandhar, is involved as well. Vishnu Mohan is a National Award-winning director.
Then, of course, there’s Mohanlal sir, who’s a legend and a wonderful human being. He’s also one of the most effortless actors I’ve ever worked with. It’s fantastic just observing him. Shaswat Sachdev is doing the music, and he's one of the coolest guys around. I bumped into him recently in Udaipur, and we chatted about the film. He’s already started cutting things to the visuals, so I’m excited about that.
What other projects are you thrilled about?
There’s Arjun Naga with Anil Sharma, which I’ve just finished filming the first schedule for. It’s a mad family drama with lots of crazy characters. I am having too much fun working on that film. Then there’s Hansal Mehta and Robbie Grewal’s Billionaire, which I’m going to start filming now.
Solve a mystery for me. In the trailer for Dhurandhar: The Revenge, we see a blurry POV-style shot of Major Iqbal flashing a smile into the camera. His ugly gold teeth glint. The shot is missing in the final film. What happened to it?
So in Dhurandhar 1, after Akshaye’ Khanna's character passes away, you see Hamza (Ranveer Singh) hallucinating in the hospital corridor. In fact, we had actually shot similar scenes for all the people Hamza had killed as part of these hallucinations. But those portions didn’t make it to the final cut. This particular shot was Major Iqbal’s scene, where he simply grins back at Hamza and laughs.