EXCLUSIVE: Indian star Nawazuddin Siddiqui‘s journey to the leading role in indie filmmaker Aditya Kripalani‘s latest film, I’m Not An Actor, started with a comment from the director on one of Siddiqui’s Instagram posts.
Kripalani and Siddiqui laugh, as they regale the unusual tale. Siddiqui had posted a photo accompanied by a song on Instagram, a platform where he has amassed nearly 10 million followers, and Kripalani commented on it.
“I’m one of his followers,” says Kripalani. “And in India, the indie world and the big Bollywood world are very, very separate. It’s like two different planets – it could be Mars and Earth. He had posted a picture, and I wrote there, ‘can one of his 10 million followers tell me the name of the song,’ because the name of the song was not on it.”
One of Siddiqui’s followers replied with the song title, and Kripalani ended up listening to the song on repeat for a week. The song? “Desire” by Ruby Haunt, an LA-based duo.
“I said thank you to that person, tagging them, and telling them that I had been listening to it on repeat. Then Nawaz replied to that comment, saying, ‘Hey Aditya, I’m so glad you like the song.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, he knows that I exist.’”
The result was India-Germany co-production I’m Not An Actor, in which Siddiqui plays a a melancholic retired banker in Frankfurt, who connects with a struggling Mumbai actress, played by Chitrangada Satarupa (Tikli and Laxmi Bomb), through virtual acting lessons, bridging cultural gaps and personal struggles across continents.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline, Siddiqui and Kripalani recall their fateful first interaction and go on to talk about the video calls during the pandemic that first inspired the script for I’m Not An Actor. Siddiqui, who has starred in blockbusters and hits like Thamma (2025), Sacred Games (2018) and Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), also reveals the reason behind his decision not to charge an acting fee for his role.
Siddiqui would also go on to be a producer on I’m Not An Actor through his Side Hero Entertainment, alongside Faizuddin Siddiqui and Sweta Chhabria of Mumba Devi Motion Pictures. The film had its world premiere at the Cinequest Film Festival and is getting its UK theatrical release kicks off on November 7, but there’s more to the back story, as Kripalani and Siddiqui reveal.
After the contact
Following the Instagram communique, Kripalani’s indie filmmaking instincts kicked in.
“I’m a hustler. I found Nawaz’s number and messaged him,” says Kripalani. “Thankfully, I was able to meet him. The first meeting went on for five hours and we just hit it off as people, because there was a lot in common in the way we see art and life.”
For Siddiqui, Kripalani’s shared taste in music sparked some curiosity. “I was thinking that my choice of the song was very different,” he says. “It was not an emotional song and not a peppy song — it was very neutral, so if he’s someone who likes it, maybe we are on the same the same wavelength, so that is why I was so interested in him. I just said that we could meet immediately.”
Soon, Kripalani presented scripts to Siddiqui. The latter ended up picking the screenplay for I’m Not An Actor as the one that piqued his interest.
“As an actor, you always want to do something different,” says Siddiqui. “To play a non-actor is very difficult. If you ask some professional musician to play off-beat or off-key, he may start off-beat, but then, by nature, he’ll come back into beat. That’s what happens with an actor who has been practicing acting for very long — you ask them to be a bad actor, the chances are they’ll return to their natural state.”
Kripalani’s inspiration for I’m Not An Actor started during the pandemic, when he was based in Singapore with his partner, while his parents were in India.
“The idea of starting to talk on video calls and having long conversations where you ask people questions about their lives and childhood — what they’re feeling, what they’re going through on an everyday basis – really opened up in my mind,” says Kripalani.
“I’d never gotten to know my parents that well, because when you go to meet your parents, you’re always doing something. You’re at New Year, Christmas, going out for a dinner, or going to a restaurant or a park. There’s always something to do, but to sit down on a video call, you have to just talk. I felt that I got to know my parents better.”
He soon infused the concept of an acting workshop taking place over these video calls. “Acting workshops are so psychological,” adds Kripalani. “They have to go deep into someone’s psyche – what makes them tick, what happened to them, their childhood, what baggage they’re carrying, all of that.”
The film was shot live across India and Germany simultaneously for 28 days, with Siddiqui and Kripalani in Germany, and another film crew in India.
“I had two iPads: One had the frames from Mumbai, and one iPad had the frame streaming from Frankfurt itself,” says Kripalani. “That’s how we filmed for the first 48 hours. It was a pain, but after that, it was just about seeing both of them perform.”
Supporting India’s indie filmmakers
Siddiqui reveals that he did not charge an acting fee for the production of I’m Not An Actor.
“As an actor, I have to support good cinema first of all, if I have the ability to,” he explains. “Everywhere in the world, they are making this kind of big cinema – fantastic genres that need lots of money – but when you watch this kind of movie, you can just enjoy it at that moment.”
Kripalani adds: “I see it also as a friend and well wisher of his, that he comes and does a couple of films with people like me, and then he does the tentpole. He has to somehow jump back into that, because if he doesn’t do that, then he can’t do films with people like us.”
Kripalani shares that Siddiqui arrived in Frankfurt by himself, and Kripalani handed him a bicycle to get around the city.
“He’s a thorough professional,” says Kripalani. “If you give most Indian stars a bicycle, they’re going to be very upset. They want a convoy of cars. Whereas, in his case, he was fine and very happy to be free and cycling around a European city.
“He just landed at the airport with no entourage. He just submitted to the role – and I think that’s his own wisdom. He’s a wise person, and he’s able to submit to different worlds.”
Releasing ‘I’m Not An Actor’ to the world
It was a poignant moment for Siddiqui when I’m Not An Actor screened at the New York Indian Film Festival, where he won a Best Actor award. For one thing, Anurag Kashyap was seated just behind him. Siddiqui had starred in some of Kashyap’s most successful blockbusters such as Black Friday, Gangs of Wasseypur and Raman Raghav 2.0, and his frequent creative partner’s response was important.
“Nawaz made a major breakthrough from Anurag’s films, so seeing someone he had worked with many times sitting behind him and laughing made it emotional and more personal,” says Kripalani.
Kripalani also shares that while I’m Not An Actor first started out as a drama, it started to take on a more comedic tone, thanks to Siddiqui’s playfulness with the dialogue.
“He was not trying to make it funny at all, but the way it was being played was like alchemy,” says Kripalani. “You don’t have control over it. It started being funny, so I started making him do things that added to that. When we saw the film in New York, we heard people laughing 20 minutes at a stretch. That’s something I hadn’t imagined when we wrote and made the film.”
When asked what he would have worked as if not an actor, Siddiqui chuckles and says, “If not an actor, then I’ll be a struggling actor,” adding: “I get to play so many different people. Why wouldn’t I want to be an actor? There was never a plan B for me.”
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