Malayalam actor Shafeeq Mustafa on becoming Sivarasan in ‘The Hunt - The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case’

Actor Shafeeq Mustafa is a revelation in the Nagesh Kukunoor web series The Hunt —The  Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case. As the mercurial Sivarasan, the mastermind behind the 1991 assassination of the former prime minister, Shafeeq impresses in his breakout role. The Kochi-based actor is visibly happy over the outcome and the feedback coming his way from industry peers. 

For the 35 year-old self-taught actor who hails from Shoranur, the role was way beyond his wildest dreams. It came via a friend who told him about a production house that needed a South Indian actor. A round of auditions later, which included a dummy scene-and-look test, he was in. He is still excited about having got the opportunity to work with a director like Nagesh Kukunoor.

“It is an honour for me to work with someone like Nagesh sir. It is not like I am an established actor, I am trying to build a career for myself in films, and to get to work with him…I have given it my best shot!” His experience by way of a feature film is the 2020 film Ayyappanum Koshyum, in which he had a few scenes.  

Sivarasan’s character as shown in the web series is complex, intelligent and cunning. He has an air of quiet resolve mingled with arrogance all of which Shafeeq has been able to translate onscreen without going over the top. 

Since Shafeeq was barely a year old when the events depicted in the series took place, he had a clean slate on which to draw the character. “While part of my research came from documentaries, interviews about him, news reports, and photographs, the rest of it came from talking to people who lived through those times, especially journalists. This way I could try to get into the mind of the character,” Shafeeq says. Nagesh’s inputs were of great help, he adds, in shaping the character per his vision.

“I had not read 90 Days (Anirudhya Mitra’s book, the series is based on) I did not know the length of my character… I did not know too much about The Hunt. I gave it a shot because it felt unlike anything I’d encountered in my career so far, even though I am just starting out.”) 

Of the challenges of essaying Sivarasan, the Sri Lankan dialect of Tamil aside, he says it was physically demanding. “The prosthetic eye was a literal pain in the eye. It was so painful that often my eye would start watering. It was, literally, placing a foreign object in the eye and sometimes it would pop out. That was the actual difficult part. Nagesh sir would apologise about the discomfort…Imagine someone of his stature doing that!”

Though Shafeeq has not learnt acting, he was involved in theatre while in school. He came to Kochi, pursued his cinema dreams dabbling in different departments including editing and as an assistant director. “These were all my friends, so I could be around films, a part of movies!” 

Although he does not have too many feature films under his belt, he has been part of a few, including the noteworthyThiruttu Mundam. The film, directed by Renjith Vijayan, was an official selection at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK 2023).  

He does not know what comes next, but for now he is savouring the moment and the feedback from people such as Ahammed Khabeer, director of Kerala Crime Files, who told him that his performance was “honest and essayed with absolute integrity.” 

The Hunt - The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case is streaming on SonyLiv