commercial films, TV serials and advertisements, directors hire him to hold acting workshops before their films go on the floors

Mukesh Chhabra has an interesting hobby — he loves observing people’s faces. Whenever he’s out, he finds himself noticing people, their facial movements, their hand gestures, mannerisms, even their accents and their overall style of speaking.

You can’t blame Indian film industry’s biggest casting director for this uncanny interest. In his daily life, observing people is what earns him, quite literally, his bread and butter. For someone who shifted base to Mumbai from New Delhi almost a decade ago, with a diploma from Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts, to carve a niche in the Hindi film industry, Chhabra is one of the most established casting directors of the industry today.

Not only does he cast actors for important commercial films and television serials and advertisements, directors — obviously impressed with his own skills as a theatre actor — hire him to hold acting workshops before their films go on the floors.

Chhabra’s rise to the top is interesting, especially given that the industry didn’t quite have the concept of “casting” actors for films. The rise of multiplexes, a corporate structure to filmmaking, which in turn facilitated film directors to tell interesting stories, has led to casting directors becoming integral to the film industry in the past decade or so. Chhabra, on his part, excels in the department simply because he has a background in theatre and understands just what the film director wants in his or her film. “My association with Mukesh started with Chillar Party and I feel he was spot-on with the casting. For me, 50 per cent of the film’s success depends on getting the cast right,” says Anurag Kashyap, noted film director who even gave Chhabra a bit role in his seminal film, Gangs of Wasseypur. The film industry, in fact, is full of praise for Chhabra and his talent — no surprise then that he was given special recognition for his effort at the recently concluded Stardust film award ceremony. What’s more, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is now set to launch Chhabra as a film director.

From the time I’ve known him and interacted with him, Chhabra’s work has grown tremendously. Back in 2009, when I first met him, he was a one-man army working out of a humble room, which he called his office. Today, he has a full-fledged company by the name of, what else, Mukesh Chhabra Casting Company with a bunch of enthusiastic employees who work hard in ensuring that the right talent is spotted for the right roles in films. It must be noted here that typically filmmakers — and production companies — decide on the lead roles (“for the sake of commerce”, as a film analyst explains) but where a casting director becomes relevant is in deciding the cast for all the other characters.

Clearly, Chhabra’s creative instinct and sensibility is aiding filmmakers in getting super cast for their films. In the bargain, however, Chhabra is also giving the industry stars in the making. Take a film such as Kai po che, for instance. Initially, the film director, Abhishek Kapoor, wanted established stars for the film. It was Chhabra, however, who took one look at the script and convinced the director to look for newcomers. Scouting for the right faces and the right talent, it is to Chhabra’s credit that actors such as Amit Sadh and Sushant Singh Rajput got noticed in the film industry. Kai po che became a surprise hit of its year and allowed viewers, critics, and industry experts to take note of the acting talent of actors such as Sadh and Rajput. The film also had Rajkummar Rao who would later give the industry another critically acclaimed film, Shahid. Here, too, it was Chhabra who convinced Hansal Mehta to cast Rao in the film.

Though absolutely fulfilling (given that you give wings to so many aspiring actors), being a casting director, Chhabra says, has its own challenges. While one has to be upfront in letting a beefed up, handsome or a pretty face know that they aren’t quite “actors”, one also has to be careful of not being in the news for the wrong reasons. Though he’s sympathetic to people’s aspirations, Chhabra is transparent in letting people know so that they don’t get deluded. This can, he admits, have a damaging effect on people who sometimes threaten him with dire consequences, pelt stones at his car and get aggressive while refusing to believe they can’t act.

There’s another challenge, he says: Sticking to your guns if you are convinced of an actor in the role even if the director isn’t. According to Chhabra, no matter how heated the argument, if you are convinced of an actor, the director has to be convinced.

Chabbra’s company opened up because he wanted to be thoroughly professional in the business of casting people for movies. From 11 am to 7 pm, every day, people are called for auditions. There are CCTV cameras installed and the entire idea of the process is to allow extreme professionalism to seep into the industry. Everything happens in a transparent manner at the company, with the clear aim of promoting the right talent and becoming the bridge between directors and actors.

What keeps Chhabra going despite the challenges is his vision — to improving the standards of cinema viewing and storytelling. Although he feels he was lucky in being at the right time at the right place (the complexion of Hindi cinema was gradually changing when I stepped in, he says), it’s his hard work and sheer will to keep going that has allowed him to grow phenomenally in the role of a casting director.

Now that he is going to don the proverbial directorial hat for his own debut film, we can only imagine the success Chhabra will deliver — in storytelling, in the casting, this show from Chhabra, like his other endeavours, is going to be a box office hit.