Audiences have no expectations of me now: 'Emergency’ actor Vishak Nair on shedding his ‘Kuppi’ image

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Actor Vishak Nair, fondly known as Kuppi among the Malayali audience, is on a roll in Bollywood. He was recently seen as Sanjay Gandhi in Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Emergency’, which hit theatres on January 17. Before this, he appeared in the Kangana-starrer ‘Tejas’ and the Taapsee Pannu-starrer ‘Shabaash Mithu’.
Vishak, in a recent interview with Onmanorama, admitted he had difficulty shedding the ‘Kuppi’ image he gained after the hit 2016 Malayalam film ‘Aanandam’ and said he took a break for a few years to reinvent himself.
“To be honest, I felt I needed a refresh from the kind of roles I had been doing. Actors get restricted to playing the same kind of character in which they excelled. This happens in Mollywood because we don’t have an audition culture. As an actor, we are always at the behest of the director or the screenwriter, and they position us in a certain way because they see something in us. But auditions allow us to showcase different things to filmmakers,” he said.
He said directors would not allow him to do something different with his characters, though he tried. “Every time I tried to do something different, the directors would have none of it. They would want me to act in the same note I played Kuppi, but not be Kuppi, and that was confusing. I honestly got exhausted. I told myself I didn’t give up on my lucrative engineering career to do the same thing repeatedly. I could have settled abroad if I was in films for the money. It was more than that. I dreamt of becoming an actor since the age of 14. And when I was finally there, living at the precipice of my dream, I didn’t want to live it with second-grade conditions and expectations. I wanted to have some agency over the direction of my career.
This is when I decided to take a break. I did some films in between, but I am glad I took some time to reflect on my career. Between 2018 and 2020, I founded my own production company and also decided to follow my directorial dreams,” said the actor, who directs at least one short film every year.
He recently made a prominent comeback in 2024, playing significant roles in the Malayalam films ‘Exit’ and ‘Footage’, both of which were experimental.
“Now, people have no expectations of me. I could do a film like ‘Exit’ because I’m not afraid to say I want to ride that wave. After all, there is no wave. I am personally getting to do the kind of films I like doing,” he said.
Vishak will soon be seen in the Malayalam film ‘Officer’, starring Kunchacko Boban.