Ms Marvel’s dad, Mohan Kapur: ‘I don’t think Om Puri and Irrfan Khan had a typical Indian accent’

Most who grew up in the 90s would remember Mohan Kapur as the face of the first superhit game show to grace Indian television, Saanp Seedi. The show which aired from 1992 to 1994 was well-received and translated in a range of on and off-screen opportunities for Kapur. In a career spanning thirty years, he has starred in movies, television serials, and web series, besides lending his booming baritone to the dubbed versions of several Hollywood blockbusters.

When quizzed on how his recent celebrity status sizes up to his first big TV splash three decades ago, he quips, “But Ms Marvel is ten times bigger than Saanp Seedi.” In the Marvel series, Kapur plays Yusuf Khan, the father of the titular character. The series has managed to garner critical acclaim and has been among the most-watched shows, largely for the compelling performances, and realistic portrayal of the South Asian community in the US.

Here's an excerpt from the interview in which the actor spoke about his dubbing gigs, the stereotypical representation of Indian families in Hollywood films and shows, and the upcoming superhero film, The Marvels.

1. You have dubbed for the Hindi versions of several Hollywood projects, including Marvel films such as Captain America: The First Avenger and Doctor Strange. And with Ms Marvel you are appearing as an actor in a TV series by Marvel Studios. What did you learn from those dubbing gigs and how did you prepare for the role of Yusuf Khan?

Dubbing is purely an audio medium. But I staunchly believe that dubbing is not just about having a good voice and being able to match the lip sync of the actor. It is also voice acting. So, I give a huge premium on the effort that I put in over there. Facing the camera as Yusuf Khan is audio-visual. It’s in my first language of comfort, though I’m comfortable in Hindi and English. I can improvise in both languages in the absence of a script. So yes, it was a completely different experience from dubbing. But I don’t think dubbing really helped me prepare for the role. I started dubbing about thirty years ago to hone the skill of voice acting. And it helps me train my voice. So the difference was really audio and audio visual, but it wasn’t really a match as such for each of them.

2. Several Indian actors such as Irrfan Khan, Om Puri, and Anupam Kher have managed to seamlessly straddle film industries in India and the West. What are the skills that help an actor adapt to the demands of different industries?

When I got myself an agent, she was doing a film (Heartbeats) in India and I was cast in that as an Indian father. She and the director of that film noticed my performance and said, what are you doing in India? You should be in Hollywood. So one day, I asked them, what made you think that I can do that crossover? They said, your craft and the way you act, your sensibilities, etc., and they said the most important thing is your voice. You don’t have an American accent, you don’t have a British accent. You have a very neutral accent. They said a lot of good Indian actors are not being able to probably make it over there because they have a very pronounced local/ regional accent to their voice. So that was something that I realized.

At the same time, I don’t think Om Puri and Irrfan Khan had a typical Indian accent, but there was an Indian lilt to their voice. So I guess it’s finally the craft. It’s purely the craft that you do and the sensibilities. It’s like saying you act in a David Dhawan film versus you act in a Farhan Akhtar or Zoya Akhtar film. The sensibilities and the characterisations of these two films are completely different. So I was very intrigued at first that I would ask the young kinds in Ms Marvel, including Iman, if I did the scene well. But she would ask me why I was asking her when the director had said it was okay. Then I would explain that I’m coming from a different paradigm, a different school of different characters that I portrayed in India. So I don’t want to get it wrong because in India, we only perform for Indian audiences, but Hollywood performs for a global audience. So I just needed to be sure that I’m on the right track.

3. With four episodes down, how has the reception been so far, and how do you manage to process success and failure?

Let me start with the processing of success and failure. When I was shooting, people were very excited about me doing a Marvel project. I was also enamoured by the scale at which they work and was like a kid at a candy shop looking at all their equipment. But honestly, I was just doing my job. Everybody around me said that my life was going to change after this, and I hope it does for the better. But success for me is one project getting me another project.

The adulation has been insane. When I did Saanp Seedi way back in 1992 for two years, it put my world into another realm completely. But Ms Marvel is ten times bigger than that, and I never thought that the character of a father would get so much attention, so much adulation. I just did a dad’s role but the character of Yusuf Khan has connected with people across communities and nationalities. And that’s really encouraging.

4. Do you feel that character actors have come into the spotlight in the OTT universe?

Absolutely! And I’m so happy because there are so many wonderful actors out there and we can see them. They’re all coming out. The work they’re bringing out on screen is incredible. And kudos to the makers, the writers, to the platforms who are encouraging these talents. It’s a lovely feeling.

5. Do you think your popularity has helped Ms Marvel introduce superhero content to a wider audience in India; people who would not essentially watch such films and shows?

I don't think so. If so, then it’ll be a very small number of people. What is encouraging is that now I’m noticing a lot of friends whose parents have been introduced to Marvel because it’s the Indian or the South Asian milieu. With Ms Marvel, they have started to relate with the characters. So a lot of new audience has been introduced, but I don’t think Marvel needs any introduction because of me being in it.

6. What is your take on Indian superhero films such as Minnal Murali and the upcoming Brahmastra? Do they have the potential to find a place in the global superhero space?

Well, I hope they do. Having said that, I haven’t watched too many films lately, but I’m very excited about Brahmastra. It sounds promising from the trailer. So let’s see how that goes. But by and large, I have not seen Indian storytelling crossing the overseas market, mainly because our films have a very Indian context. That said, we have got some great Indian films and I often wonder why they’re not probably marketed well. There are a lot of Indian films I think that would do well. Not as well as the Marvel films, obviously, because neither do Hollywood films, do as well as Marvel. But I think there’s still time for that because the storytelling has to be on a global scale, not just catering to the Indian sensibilities.

7. Why do you feel that the stereotypical depiction of desi families has failed to become more realistic over decades?

I don’t know. In fact, we used to talk about this while reading the script. I used to tell Sana (Amanat) that I hope we are not made caricatures or cliches that we normally see. She said that the characters presented would be true to life. And I believe that the casting was fantastic because Iman is a Pakistani from Canada, Saagar is a Pakistani from Texas, Zenobia is an Indian living in New York, and then there is me. So I think between the script and all of us coming together organically, we made sure that nonsense does’t happen.

But why have they done it? I don’t know. We are not the land of snake charmers and elephants walking on the streets.Yes, we do have cows lazing around in the middle of the traffic, but that’s another story. So, I mean, I really don’t know. Maybe they did this in the past. But I hope it changes especially since Marvel has led the juggernaut to show the South Asian family unit as it is. And it is evident in the positive feedback we have been receiving for the portrayal of a regular South Asian family that has assimilated into the American way of life. And I hope that this just carries on. I’m sure actually that this will happen because if the biggest production company in the world, Marvel, can do it, anyone else can also do it.

8. You started your career in television with a superhit show like Saanp Seedi in 1992. Now, your latest show can only be streamed on an OTT platform. With the tremendous growth in the OTT space today, how do you see the tastes and preferences of audiences evolve in the future?

Well, I’m hoping that they give more space and time to good content. Because what’s going to happen is that audiences are going to start getting picky about what they see on their screen. I truly believe that OTT is going to be a very good alternative. I mean, all the mediums will continue to flourish. Television will flourish in its own way, whatever way that is. Films will have to get its act together because OTT is going to give them a run for their money. But what needs to be seen is how they play out storytelling for OTT and how they play out storytelling for the big screen. The recent past has shown us that a lot of content in the Hindi film industry has not worked while that of the South Indian industry has worked. So what is it that we are missing? That would be interesting to watch. But OTT definitely has an amazing future. But if we get lazy about it and start churning out rubbish on OTT, it’s not going to work because for audiences that’s their time and money. So OTTs have to keep their steam going as they have been doing from the beginning.

9. If I were to ask you to pick a favourite from all the characters you have voiced so far, which one would that be?

It’s hard to compare because each character is different. Doctor Strange is very different from Batman’s (The Dark Knight Rises) Bane. And Bane was very tricky because there wasn’t any lip movement since his mouth would always be covered. Also, they wanted me to catch the lilt of the voice since the actor had a typical way of delivering his dialogues in English. So we tried different variations. Finally, I told my dubbing producer let’s just do one mimicking of what the actor has done. The voice clip was then sent to L.A. and it was approved. So, that dub was difficult in its own way.

I have not done too many animation films, but I find them very challenging. Mainly because you are not playing a human being; you’re kind of a beautiful creature who’s got a different energy from regular human characters. And because their emotions are different from what human interactions and emotions are, I find them a little challenging.

Then there’s Bruce Willis for Die Hard. That was a very interesting character. So you can’t compare any two characters because they all come in their own world. Hercule Poirot (Death on the Nile) was also challenging because of the way he speaks. We decided we were not going to do a French accent but we will make the Hindi so polished that it looks like this guy is a gentleman and of different standing.

So every character poses a new challenge. I don’t get deterred or nervous by them. They’re all very interesting in their own way because they all open a new world for me as a voice actor.

10. Have production houses and studios become more involved in the dubbing process over the years?

Yes, it has always been so. It was never taken lightly. The only thing that I kept cribbing about was that they took our fees lightly because they think it’s just dubbing and get away by giving you a nickel and dime. That’s not how it is supposed to be done because dubbing opens up a whole new territory for the movie. And as numbers have shown, the Hindi versions of a lot of Hollywood films have done extremely well. It’s really unfair in that way. But studios abroad don’t view dubbing as a casual thing. The script, the quality of voicing, everything has to be top notch because finally they’re releasing their product in our voices. They will not compromise on that.

11. Since you hosted one of India’s first superhit game shows to air on TV if you were to host a game show today, what would you do differently?

Well, that would obviously depend on what the show is. The predominant concept of Saanp Seedi was that it was a live-action game show of a board game that we’re all familiar with. The technical aspect of it was that it was the first time a five-camera shoot was being done in India. Each episode was one take without any cuts. Once the episode begins, they won’t stop midway even if something goes wrong. Like once I remember one of the lights fell down and it broke on set but the director asked me to continue. So I just looked at the camera and said this is what happens when you don’t have budgets. Everybody laughed and we just continued with the shoot. So what would I do differently? This would depend purely on the concept of the show. Then, what energies do I need to bring in? That show needed a lot of energy because we used to shoot about eight episodes a day.

12. You will be reprising your role as Yusuf Khan in the film The Marvels, which will feature the characters Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel. Can you share any updates on the project with us?

I can’t give any updates as such, but all I can tell you is that’s another crazy ride. It’s a crazy ride for me as an actor because here I’m sitting on set delivering dialogues with Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury. And then I’m sitting in a spaceship and I’m looking at the way they’ve done all this, and everything is not necessarily green screen. A lot of it, they actually create over there for you so that you get the feel of it. So it’s another amazing ride. And it happened so soon after Ms Marvel that we barely processed that, and suddenly we were in London shooting for the film. It was insane. So Kamala is going to go into the universe from Jersey City. She’s going to now be alongside her idol, Captain Marvel. So that will open up a whole new world for Kamala, for the Marvel Universe, and for us as a family. It would be interesting to see where we go from that.

13. Will there be a season 2 of Ms Marvel?

Nothing has been confirmed yet, but we are hoping for a season 2 of Ms Marvel.