From Cannes to Cockpits, India’s Vijay Varma Takes Flight (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comNaman Ramachandran Indian actor Vijay Varma is having a moment. With lead roles in several high-profile streaming projects this year, including the hijacking drama “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” for Netflix, Prime Video’s “Mirzapur” and Disney+ Hotstar’s “Murder Mubarak,” Varma has cemented his position as one of India’s most in-demand performers.
The actor recently wrapped filming on Vibhu Puri’s “Ul Jalool Ishq,” a poetic drama co-starring Naseeruddin Shah about an Urdu letterpress owner searching for a reclusive poet. “It’s a beautiful, intimate story between one person who runs a barely surviving Urdu [press] and he wants to desperately hold on to this letterpress, but nothing is getting printed anymore in Urdu,” Varma tells Variety.
He’s currently shooting “Matka King,” a Prime Video original series set in the 1960s and 70s, directed by Nagraj Manjule. “It’s the rise of a very interesting business, at the same time, an individual who found a certain kind of a loophole in a system and tried to make a lot of money through it,” Varma says. “We are 30%, 40% in right now, and we will be shooting till the end of December.” Varma’s standout 2024 comes after over a decade of steady work across indie films and streaming platforms.
One of his early films, 2013’s “Monsoon Shootout,” by Amit Kumar, premiered at Cannes. “My first red carpet that I ever walked in my life as an actor was for Cannes,” Varma recalls.
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