Ever since making his feature film debut in Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha (alongside fellow debutants Rajkummar Rao and Nushrratt Bharuccha) more than a decade ago, Anshuman Jha has done some quality work across mediums, continuing to push the envelope with every part. Anshuman, 35, now stars in Hum Bhi Akele Tum Bhi Akele as a gay man who strikes up an unlikely friendship on a road trip with a woman (played by Zareen Khan) who is also gay. A chat with Anshuman on the film that streams on Disney+Hotstar from May 9.

What does it mean to you to have a film release in the unprecedented times that we are in now?

It’s true that 10 per cent of the country’s population is directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic. But there is also 90 per cent of the population that’s suffering from fear, anxiety and depression because of the constant negative consumption of news. I am trying my best to help in whatever little way I can, and we should all do that. But I also feel that for the remaining 90 per cent there is also a responsibility that I have as an artiste. I lost both my parents in the last 12 months, and I know that in such times, anything that made me feel positive and happy, helped.

Since yesterday, I have got some messages about the trailer that say, ‘It made us smile’. So it takes your mind off, even if it’s for a minute, from all that’s happening around us. When you watch the film, for those two hours, you can focus on something else. The mind is a beautiful machine... it’s like a sponge. What you feel, it gives out.

This is a very humane and compassionate film. It’s about friendship. If the movie can make people smile, in these grim times, I will be very happy. And as an artiste, I feel very privileged that I have the opportunity to serve people indirectly through this.

A film about two gay characters striking up a friendship on a road trip seems refreshing. What made you sign on?

I always believe more in the process of making a film. That’s probably because I have been trained by people in theatre (Anshuman has trained under theatre guru Barry John) who have drilled in me that the process is more important than the result. For Hum Bhi Akele Tum Bhi Akele, the process was of paramount importance to me. From the first day of narration to the one year of scripting to when it went to Singapore in the South Asian film market — it was one of the 10 films there in 2018 — to the script getting locked in 2019 to us going on the floors and completing shoot and then getting stuck last year because of the pandemic.... Now the reactions that I am getting to the trailer is very satisfying because I focused on the process of creating something that is very pure. The intent behind it was very honest because I have a lot of friends from the LGBTQ community.

Apart from Kapoor & Sons, which dealt with it in a neutral manner, Indian cinema has either caricaturised the community or has made it very dark and intense. Even Ayushmann’s (Khurrana) film (Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan) was primarily a comedy. Nothing has been done from a humane and compassionate point of view. The truth is that even though homosexuality has now been legalised in India, there is a big part of the community that can’t open up to their families because it’s still considered a taboo. So the idea behind this film is to honestly communicate that we are all the same, and that we need to accept each other for what we are. And the times that we are in, compassion is something we can all do with.

The idea of this film starts with friendship. Friendship has no endgame because you don’t have expectations from it like you would have from a relationship. Friendship has this very strange space in our lives... it’s just beautiful for what it is. Of course, there are certain expectations even within friendship, but in my life, my friendships have always been pure and giving.

Apart from the difference in sexual orientation, is Veer like you in any way?

He’s totally different. The first three months of prep were a nightmare for me. On the surface of it, it looks like I just had to show up on set and do my thing. But I am someone who breaks down everything to the T. Veer is a homosexual man, and for me, just the thought of the psycho-physical aspect of a gay man — how he would react to the touch of a man to a lot of other things — was important to understand. The first thing was to break down everything that Anshuman is. I like to wear my watch on my right hand, but for Veer I started wearing it on my left. I intentionally told the costume designers to come up with a colour scheme which is nothing like me. For me, costumes are a major mask as an actor.

The character is nothing like me. I speak my mind... what I see is what I speak and what I do and that’s always in sync. Veer is not at all like that... what he is feeling is different from what he says and what he ends up doing. That’s because he’s in fear of being judged. This is the most challenging part for me so far, among all the plays and the 10-15 films I have done so far. It was emotionally the toughest, in terms of what it took out of me, and hence very satisfying. When we premiered in New York, it was a full house of 400 people and out of that, 180 were from the LGBTQ community. The biggest satisfaction was that most of them related to Veer.

Is your prep as intense for every part you play?

I like to do it for every part, and I have been lucky to get directors like that. Dibakar (Banerjee) made us workshop for eight hours a day for a month for LSD (Love Sex Aur Dhokha). I come from stage, and for me, acting is all about discipline and process. For Yeh Hai Bakrapur, I workshopped for a month and learnt how to cut hair from Aalim Hakim because I had to play a barber. In Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain, I had to play a Benarasi boy, so I went and stayed in Benaras for 10 days before shoot, got clothes from there.... My endeavour always is that my characters should be remembered... people don’t have to remember me, I am totally okay being unknown.

I did a series called Mastram last year which got some crazy number of views, and most people only want to talk about the sexual aspect of it. But it’s the story of a real-life guy who actually wanted to be an author — he would read Shakespeare and Brecht, and wanted to write literature himself — but he was forced to write porn, and he became a cult figure... he probably helped a lot of men in the ’80s and ’90s when there was no Internet (laughs). Here the prep for me was extremely important. For No Fathers In Kashmir, I got to spend only a week with army personnel in Kashmir, but that was enough for me.

Did making Hum Bhi Akele Tum Bhi Akele sensitise you even more to the struggles of the LGBTQ community?

I have been brought up by women... by my mother and my sister. I am by nature very emotional and sensitive. I think that helped me play Veer because he’s very vulnerable from an emotional quotient point of view. Yes, I did get a graph of the depth of their struggles... a little more. It’s hard to be judged like the way most of them are. When I started this, I was asked, ‘Are you sure you want to play a gay character? You haven’t really established yourself as a leading man’. The fact that these questions came to me egged me on even more because I saw it as an opportunity to say something as an artiste and start a conversation.