Bollywood actor Anupam Kher has bagged a BAFTA nomination for his work in The Boy with the Topknot. The actor has been nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category along with Brian F. O'Byrne (Little Boy Blue), Jimmi Simpson- USS Callister (Black Mirror) and Adrian Dunbar (Line Of Duty).
Taking to Twitter, Kher wrote: “Thank you Bafta for the nomination. I feel honoured and humbled.”
Wishes poured in for the veteran actor shortly after BAFTA’s announcement. Congratulating Kher, fellow actor Anil Kapoor wrote, “Congratulations !sir Anupam Kherji .. your friend from Juhu India is very proud of you ..”. In reply to his tweet, Kher wrote, “Mere Pyare Juhu ke dost. Thank you so much. Love.”
Actor-comedian Vir Das also took to the microblogging site to congratulate the thespian. “Congratulations to @AnupamPKher for the BAFTA nomination! It’s a very big deal and you make us very proud sir!” he wrote.
The Boy with the Topknot is a drama based on the critically acclaimed memoirs of British journalist Sathnam Sanghera. Kher essayed the role of Sathnam's father Jagjit, someone who had been living with schizophrenia. The story follows a British Sikh family’s struggle with mental illness.
Sanghera is happy his memoir became a movie as it would aid in getting rid of the stigma around mental illness. However, he is also aware that in some communities the change is happening more slowly.
“Loads of people have family with schizophrenia and they don’t talk about it for several reasons – the symptoms are often very difficult, sometimes there is violence, and there is serious shame with that," he told The Guardian last year. "But in the Indian community, you’ve got the superstition – this idea of black magic. That’s still really prevalent.” After his book came out, he was criticised by people who told him he had brought shame on the community."
