‘Monkey Man’ Star Vipin Sharma on Playing a Trans Role in Dev Patel’s Directorial Debut: ‘He Saw Me as a Female Character’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comNaman Ramachandran Indian actor Vipin Sharma is earning global acclaim for playing a trans character in Dev Patel‘s feature directorial debut “Monkey Man.” Sharma plays Alpha, the leader of a trans community known in India as hijras, who is instrumental in providing a new lease on life to Patel’s character when he’s down and out in “Monkey Man.” Aamir Khan’s “Taare Zameen Par” (2007) was Sharma’s breakthrough role, and since then he has won plaudits for “Paan Singh Tomar,” “Gangs of Wasseypur” and “Shahid” (all 2012), “Raanjhanaa” (2013), “Raman Raghav 2.0” (2016), “Paatal Lok” (2020) and “Dear Jassi” (2023).
When director Anthony Maras offered Sharma a role in “Hotel Mumbai” (2018), starring Patel, the actor accepted. “He said, ‘It’s not a very big part, but it’s a very interesting part.’ I immediately took it because it was going to make me meet Dev who I really wanted to meet,” Sharma tells Variety.
Sharma had a small scene with Patel in “Hotel Mumbai” and they had a brief chat. “Hotel Mumbai” producer Jomon Thomas stayed in touch with Sharma and called him in for an audition in Mumbai when he was setting up “Monkey Man.” Patel and Sharma then read some lines together. “Something clicked right away as soon as we met the second time.
First time, we had a bit of a formal chat. But second time, we just clicked and we chatted,” Sharma says, adding that he had a callback immediately and was cast. “He said, ‘This is your role, I really want you to do this role.’ And later on, he told me when he saw ‘Hotel Mumbai’ in London, he saw my scene and he immediately thought that I’m going to be in his film.” Sharma adds, “It’s very interesting that from the ‘Hotel Mumbai’ small little scene, he saw me as somebody just completely the opposite of me.
