Aashim Gulati on playing Naseeruddin Shah’s son in Taj: ‘My acting school came to me by himself’

After playing a prominent part of the ensemble cast in season one, Aashim Gulati is back as the lead actor in the second season, Taj: Reign of Revenge. The actor plays Salim, son of emperor Akbar, who was exiled as the first season ended on a cliffhanger. He now returns to his kingdom but with an aim to avenge the death of his lover, Anarkali, against his own father. As Salim, Aashim will be seen as a completely different person after a 15 year leap but the actor reveals he had to shoot the two contrasting seasons in one go due to unforeseen circumstances. In an interview with Hindustan Times, Aashim opens up about the show and how much different the two seasons are from each other. (Also read | Taj Divided by Blood director Ronald Scalpello wanted to show real human emotions: ‘Otherwise it’s a Marvel film’)

Aashim also shares his experience of working with Aditi Rao Hydari in the first season and getting the opportunity of working with Naseeruddin Shah. He also opens about making his Bollywood debut at the time of demonetisation. Excerpts:

How different is Salim this time?

There is a lot more drama and killings. Salim does all that he never stood for in the first season – he has forgotten that there is a family he left, he wanted his brothers to rule together but now he is back with a sword in hand because the one thing that was so dear to him was taken away – Anarkali. Timelines have changed, he now plays a father as well and is very dark and lonely. Mehrunisa is there, he has a different bond with her and her son. He has so many questions from his father and people in court.

Salim goes under a massive transformation in the second season. Did you opt for a specific method to bring out a change in your character?

We shot the two seasons one after the other with not too much time apart. There was such a huge contrast in the first and the second season that I would have loved to have some time out in between. We would have probably taken some time to prepare for the second but a lot happened during the first. Covid happened and Ron (director Ronald Scalpello) lost his mom and had to run back home. We lost a lot of time.

We had to take that mental leap of timeline where first I was in my late 20s and had to jump straight into late 30s. It was challenging to play such a mature character all of a sudden as he had gone through so much. But when we got into our getups and rehearsed a little bit, and had makeup which made me look a lot tanner and darker and costumes had changed, I became a ‘baghi’. It was also written that way, there was a lot of context around it. We were thrown into the deep and were expected to make it to the shore and now we feel we have reached the other side of the ocean.

Working with Naseeruddin Shah is like going to be like an acting school. And you have been lucky that way.

I always wanted to go to a film school but sometimes there was no money or no time. Many things came and went by in a decade. After working for 10 years, my acting school came to me by himself.

What was going on in your mind when you were filming the sex scene which became the talking point of the trailer of the first season?

It was just a part of the story and took it forward. This is how Salim was. He liked women a lot, poetry, music, he was almost perpetually drunk. It was the first scene to introduce his character. The script demanded it and it was very tastefully done. Ron was very sure of how he wanted it to be shot. People have not said that it looks cheap or not from the era.

You romanced Aditi Rao Hydari in the first season. You two had a successful chemistry.

She is really sweet, very giving actress. She is a very good co-actor and very supportive. It didn’t feel like we were working for the first time. The director made it very easy, it was really comfortable on set.

The ZEE5 show is very different from other films and shows on Mughals.

We just believed in our director’s vision and took it forward. The makers had researched it that way and wanted to make it very believable. It’s a family drama, the story of a dysfunctional household. It could be any business family.

You made your film debut with Tum Bin 2. Looking at the success of the original first part, you must have had high expectations. Did you feel dejected when it didn’t work well commercially or you were content since you went on to play the lead in TV show Dil Sambhal Jaa Zara soon after.

First I wanted to be an artist and the artist cannot restrict himself to a particular platform. Of course an artist wants to see himself on the silver screen. But there is no one way of showing your art. Sometimes things don’t work out and it happens for a reason. Tum Bin 2 wasn’t a flop, it was one of the few successes at that time but demonetisation had happened, it didn’t work the way we thought it would. It did bog me down for a few days but life moves on. Make mistakes, make better choices and then make better mistakes. Nobody should stop working. Whatever I have done, I have come out with experience. Good or bad, at least they are my experiences. All my projects are very dear to me because I made the choices. I hold myself self-accountable. I can’t blame anyone or let anyone take credit from me. When you have a child, you don’t judge him no matter how he is.