After ‘Srikanth’, the biopic on visually-impaired industrialist Srikanth Bolla, hit screens, many predicted it would be a strong contender at the National Awards, with Rajkummar Rao tipped by several as the frontrunner for Best Actor. However, while the film did clinch the Best Hindi Feature Film award, the top acting honour ultimately slipped away from him.
Nidhi Parmar Hiranandani denies it’s a snub for Rajkummar
Instead, the Best Actor trophy at the 72nd National Film Awards was shared jointly by Kartik Aaryan and Mammootty, for ‘Chandu Champion’ and ‘Bramayugam’, respectively. ‘Srikanth’ co-producer Nidhi Parmar Hiranandani, however, brushes aside any suggestion that this counts as a snub for Rajkummar. “I don’t think you can snub an actor of Raj’s calibre at all. That’s not possible,” she tells News18.“I don’t think the jury of National Awards would do that. I’m sure they had their reasons. Expectation wise, every maker wants a win for their cast, crew and themselves. And Raj has given one of the finest performances of his career in this film. It’s there for everyone to see. As Srikanth, he brought him alive onscreen and we’re very grateful to him for that,” she adds.
Nidhi Parmar Hiranandani calls Kartik Aaryan’s win well-deserved
Parmar, who is also married to director Tushar Hiranandani, goes on to heap praise on Kartik, convinced that he truly earned the honour. “Kartik has done a phenomenal job in Chandu Champion. The National Awards jury knew what they were doing. But would we’ve wanted Raj to win? Definitely. Does that mean we didn’t want Kartik to win? No. They’ve taken the right decision,” she states.Nidhi shares that she never truly expected the predictions around Srikanth’s big win to come true, and points to the fact that both the film and Tushar had been largely snubbed at nearly every Bollywood award function. “I was expecting some nominations for our film. Our cast members received the Best Actor and the Best Supporting Actor awards. The writers got nominated but Tushar didn’t get nominated at all,” she rues.She further continues, “I don’t know how many nominations the film got either. But through the process of being snubbed by everyone, it felt like maybe it’s not happening for us. But it didn’t bother me much because it didn’t mean that we made a lesser film. It just meant that I don’t know how to play the game.”
Srikanth’s Oscar snub had dampened Nidhi’s hopes
Srikanth’s failure to be picked as India’s official entry to the Oscars had further dampened her hopes. “There were talks about our film being considered for Oscars many times, which never happened. So, we never had any hopes. That’s why, National Award was something we didn’t even think about. But then the news came out of nowhere. This is the highest honour,” she exclaims.
Nidhi Parmar Hiranandani says she and Tushar are ‘still in shock’
Unsurprisingly, both Nidhi and Tushar are ‘still in shock’. “We’re very grateful but still processing. The National Award wasn’t a dream that we even held. We weren’t even thinking about it but we knew that we had given our best to the film. We’re very happy. The Best Film award isn’t just for us. It’s for everybody involved with the film,” Nidhi remarks.