Nawazuddin Siddiqui to play Saadat Hasan Manto

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is having quite the year. After having starred in Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0, for which he’s received accolades from all quarters, he’s now starring in Sohail Khan’s Freaky Ali, in which turns into an accidental golfer. The actor is now gearing up for an even bigger role; Nawaz will be starring as Urdu thinker and author Saadat Hasan Manto, in a film directed by Nandita Das.

“It’s a huge challenge and responsibility. Manto had such a brilliant mind and he had an influence across both sides of the border. I cannot ‘play’ Manto; I have to submerge my own personality into Manto. I cannot be visible in this role; it would be an insult to the man and his great talent,” says Nawaz, who is now busy catching up on the writings of Manto.

“I don’t think entering Manto’s body is as important as entering his mind. What he wrote was so powerful and so influential, it’d be an honour to simply represent those thoughts on screen as if I owned them, when in reality no one can own Manto’s thoughts except Manto himself,” explains Nawaz, reverently.