Anupam Tripathi

Some Lesser Known Facts About Anupam Tripathi

• Anupam Tripathi is an Indian actor based in South Korea who is popular for his portrayal of the main role of ‘Abdul Ali’ in Netflix’s South Korean survival drama series ‘Squid Game’ (2021).

• He belongs to a middle-class family in New Delhi, India. ^[5]Manila Bulletin

• Initially, he was interested in music and was learning singing. He began thinking about pursuing acting as his career after he acted the role of a slave in a stage production of Spartacus. In an interview, he talked about his experience of acting for the first time and said,
  

  I enjoyed every bit of it because in going in front of the audience and expressing myself — it was so fascinating to become somebody and then again become myself.”

• He began training in acting in 2006. From 2006 to 2010, he trained under the Indian playwright Shahid Anwar as a part of Anwar’s theater group Behroop.

• His initial plan was to join the National School of Drama, New Delhi, India, to train in acting. However, after a friend recommended him to apply for the Arts Major Asian scholarship in South Korea, he gave the required exam for the scholarship and went to South Korea to do majors in acting at the Korea National University of Arts, Seoul, South Korea.

• When he decided to study in South Korea, his family was against it. His father wished for him to stay, study, get a job, and earn in India. His parents thinking changed after he earned the scholarship to study at the Korea National University of Arts.

• In 2010, he came to South Korea and faced several difficulties in the beginning because of variations in culture, food, and language between India and South Korea. He managed to learn Korean in two years.

  

• While he was in the third year of his graduation, he began appearing in theater plays and advertisements in South Korea.

• The 2014 South Korean film ‘Ode to My Father,’ his debut feature film, chronicles the journey of a man and his experiences during some of the major events in Korean history, including Hungnam evacuation of 1950 during the Korean War, the government’s decision to dispatch nurses and miners to West Germany in the 1960s, and the Vietnam War in the 1950s. The film became an adaption for the Bollywood film ‘Bharat’ (2019), which was directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and starred Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, and Sunil Grover in main roles.

• In 2015, Anupam was seen in the play ‘Bolryang Jeongnyeon’ as ‘Mazar.’ The play was the 2015 Seoul Theater Festival’s official participation and was staged at Daehak-ro Jayu Theater, Seoul.

  

• The next year, he appeared in the theater play ‘Othello – Oh the Yellow’ as ‘Othello.’ The play was performed at You Theater, Seoul.

• In South Korean films, he continued to play small roles in the films like The Phone (2015), Asura: The City of Madness (2016), Heart Blackened (2017), and Miss and Mrs. Cops (2019).

• He played minor roles in the South Korean series Let’s Eat 2 (2015), Descendants of the Sun (2015), Just Between Lovers (2017), Arthdal Chronicles (2019), Hospital Playlist (2020), and Taxi Driver (2021).

• After playing migrant worker roles in South Korean films and Kdrams, he expressed his concerns about being stereotyped in an interview. He said,
  

  Now, I am an expert foreign worker. Although it was never intended, 90% of the roles given were all ‘migrant workers. It seems that the stage where a foreign actor like me can stand in Korea is limited. But even in the same station, we try to transform the character. Sometimes I become a hard-working worker, and sometimes I try to be a smart worker. Although it is a small role, I try to be different from others by changing the way I speak, hairstyle, and gestures. Because I am a foreigner, there are limits to my language as well. However, it was difficult in the past to wait, but now it is not difficult. I can afford it. I think it’s time to learn. I want to stop working as a worker and do melodrama.”

• In 2021, he played ‘Sullivan’s Assistant’ in the South Korean film ‘Space Sweeper,’ which is considered the first Korean space blockbuster.

• In January 2020, after a brief vacation in India, Tripathi returned to South Korea and received a call from a casting agency. The agency was looking for actors to cast in the South Korean television series ‘Squid Game,’ which was created, written, and directed by South Korean filmmaker Hwang Dong-hyuk. After clearing the auditions, he was cast in his first main role as ‘Abdul Ali’ (numbered 199), an expatriate from Pakistan who participated in the game in the series. The series is about 456 players who participate in Squid Game, consisting of children’s games with the death penalty for the losers, to win prize money of ₩45.6 billion. The series was streamed on and distributed by Netflix worldwide and became the first Korean drama to peak at number one on Netflix’s top ten weekly most-watched TV show charts globally. Within the first 28 days of its availability, the series garnered 111 million viewers worldwide, becoming Netflix’s most-watched series at its launch.

  

• His portrayal of ‘Abdul Ali’ earned him huge popularity worldwide. While talking about it in an interview to Variety, Tripathi said,
  

  We felt that it will be received well, but when it became a phenomenon and sensation, it was not expected – I was not prepared. I still remember, September 17, 2021, 4 p.m., my life was OK, but after 5 p.m., it became huge, humongous — suddenly everyone was messaging me and it was ‘Ali,’ ‘Ali’,”

• The role of ‘Ali’ in ‘Squid Game’ demanded him to gain weight, and one of his friends helped him attain that. In an interview, he said,
  

  At that time I didn’t have the correct body shape because I had just come back after eating home food, and once they said, ‘OK you are doing this character,’ I was like OK now I have to put on weight, I have to work for it. I gained 5 or 6 kilograms and at least looked like somebody who has some power.”

  In the same interview, he talked about his characterization of a Pakistani migrant for which he watched BBC documentaries on Pakistani migrants and also spent more time with his Pakistani friends in South Korea. He said,

  I tried to go as close as I could to the character. I kept on thinking it’s going to be released in 190 countries, so how can I connect with the audience as a character. That was my internal quest all the way the day from the day they said yes to me to the day it ended. “

• He has a sun parakeet named Romeo, and he often shares his pictures with Romeo on his Instagram account.