Mumbai: Nana Patekar initially rejected the role of Uday Shetty in Welcome. When director Anees Bazmee approached him for the film, Patekar had spent years playing intense roles in films such as Parinda, Krantiveer, Yeshwant and Ab Tak Chhappan. Comedy was still fairly new for him.
“When Anees Bazmee came to me with Welcome, I said, ‘I don’t do these types of roles and I don’t know much about it,’” Patekar had later recalled. He asked Bazmee to swear on his mother that he genuinely thought Patekar should do the role. Bazmee did, and Patekar agreed.
Patekar had started trying comedy a few years earlier. He appeared in Rohan Sippy’s Bluffmaster! in 2005 and Taxi No. 9211 the following year. Welcome released in 2007.
In a 2015 interview, Patekar said, “One should do comedy with a straight face. I should give credit to Rohan Sippy and Anees Bazmee who perceived the idea. They had confidence in me that I can do comedy.”
In Welcome, he played Uday Shetty, a gangster trying to find a respectable husband for his sister. Anil Kapoor played his friend Majnu Bhai.
Uday Shetty became one of Patekar’s best-known roles. Patekar later said people sometimes recognised him simply as Uday Shetty.
The film also became a regular source of memes years after its release. “Control, Uday, control” became one of the most widely used lines from the film. So did the scene of Uday sitting with a cup of tea and laughing while Majnu is being insulted.
Patekar continued doing comedy. He appeared in Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal in 2012, returned as Uday Shetty in Welcome Back in 2015 and was part of the ensemble cast of Housefull 5.
He continued taking on serious roles as well. After Welcome, Patekar appeared in Raajneeti, The Attacks of 26/11, Ab Tak Chhappan 2, Natsamrat and Kaala.
Patekar died on Thursday at his Goa home following a cardiac arrest. He was 75.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)