Actor Rahul Bhat is being praised for his performance in the film Kennedy. Directed by Anurag Kashyap, the film was recently released on ZEE5 marking its India release. Ever since the release, Bhat has been receiving heavy praises for his performance as a contract killer.
Rahul Bhat on working with Anurag Kashyap
Talking about working with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, Rahul Bhat recalled the shoot of the climax scene. “The last scene is very characteristic of Anurag,” the actor recalled. “The character is completely alone, and I was emotionally drained while performing it. It was a very difficult and vulnerable space to be in.”
What happened next stayed with him long after the cameras stopped rolling. During an intense close-up, he noticed that Anurag had stepped away from the monitor. Instead, he was sitting right beside him. “He was holding my right hand while I was crying and performing the shot,” the actor shares. “He was right there with me in that moment.”
“He truly understands his actors,” he says. “It’s always a pleasure working with him.”
The scene that made him nervous
When asked if there was a scene that made him nervous, the actor shared, “It’s not really about being nervous. Actors do feel nervous at times, and that can actually be interesting.”
For him, the greater challenge wasn’t stepping into the character, it was stepping out of it. “Getting out of the character doesn’t happen immediately,” he explained. The emotional residue lingers.
The most demanding scenes, he says, were the silent ones. “There’s nowhere to hide,” he said. “Even behind a mask, you can’t conceal anything. Your eyes have to communicate everything.”
With no spoken words to lean on, the actor is left alone with the truth of the moment. “It’s just you,” he adds. “So I wouldn’t call it nervousness but those scenes definitely required extra focus.”
When Rahul could not stop crying
If there was one moment that caught even him off guard, it was again in the climax. A surge of emotion surfaced unexpectedly during a take. “There was a moment where his vulnerability came out in a way I hadn’t planned,” he admits. “I wasn’t supposed to be crying that much but it just happened.”
That, he believes, is the magic of complete surrender. When preparation dissolves and instinct takes over, something honest emerges. “That’s the beauty of surrendering to the character,” he says. “It simply took me to that place.”