We sit down with Scottish comic actor Sanjeev Kohli to talk about the making of his iconic Still Game character Navid.
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00:00Still Game was really my big breakout acting job.
00:02That was the first time I'd acted with any of them.
00:04I didn't know the impact the show was going to make.
00:06I certainly didn't know the impact the video was going to make.
00:08What I did know was, was that it was a joy to play him.
00:11I call it the Glasgow Asian accent.
00:13That pure Governor Hill, Bollocks Shields thing, right?
00:15Because I knew guys at college, right?
00:16Taught like that, right?
00:18Pure Glasgow, also pure Asian.
00:20They are no pals with hockey sticks.
00:21They'll break your legs, yeah?
00:23And I would listen to this.
00:23And I grew up in Bishop Briggs, very vanilla neighbourhood.
00:26So I went to Langside College for a year.
00:28I'd pure listen to these vaidos talking like this.
00:30Going up the Vicky Road, causing trouble, going to kebabish.
00:33These are chippings and pickles, yeah?
00:35And I was like, I'm loving this.
00:36And I knew I could do it.
00:38And then I thought, right, OK, with Naveed,
00:41I want to play him like my dad.
00:42He was in his mid-thirties before he came to Glasgow.
00:44So he never picked up the twang.
00:46So my dad would speak like this, you know?
00:48Eat that you cheeky bugger.
00:50Check the pressure in your tyres.
00:51Check the pressure in your boiler.
00:52Just check all the pressure everywhere.
00:54Talked like this.
00:55So I just knew if I just gave it that wee tenor tortoise quality,
00:57I could just go leave early.
00:59I could just take my dad's voice and ouija up a wee bit.
01:02And I knew he had the voice.
01:03And then for the physicality of Naveed, my dad,
01:05if you put a turban on Naveed, that's my dad.
01:08So I found it very comforting to play him.
01:11And there I see it quite easy to make the transition.
01:14And what I loved about it was I could
01:16bring all my kind of Asian experience,
01:18all my Glasgow experience, and it comes to a beautiful point
01:21in Naveed, you know?
01:22And also my dad's incredibly sarcastic, which was handy.
01:26Because Naveed also is.
01:27Again, what I loved about the Naveed character was
01:29Ford and Gregg created Naveed, wrote all the words.
01:32They're geniuses.
01:33But also they had the foresight to write an Asian character
01:36of such prominence.
01:37I would have been worried myself.
01:39But what I loved about Naveed was that he was nobody's victim.
01:43He was the richest guy in Craig Lang.
01:45He was the one driving the tan Merc with the private number plate,
01:48which you never actually saw.
01:49But he was clearly the king of Craig Lang
01:51because he was the richest guy.
01:52And that is a dynamic that you see all across.
01:57I was going to say Scotland, but all across the UK
01:59is a lot of convenience stores, corner shops.
02:04Asian families work their absolute bahooki off
02:07and make the money.
02:08And they're in quite kicked in areas,
02:09but they do really, really well.
02:11So I was sort of channeling that.
02:14But also just because once you put the fake,
02:16and it is a fake belly that we put on Naveed,
02:18so what you have is this kind of adult baby grow thing
02:21with a pillow down the duke.
02:23And suddenly you're like that.
02:25And suddenly you're like, this is arrogance.
02:28It's just your stance.
02:30Because I've got quite poor posture.
02:31I'm quite slouchy.
02:32But once that goes in, suddenly you're like that.
02:35I run this place.
02:36I run this place.
02:37And you channel that as well.
02:39The physicality is quite useful for that.
02:42But you just always have in your mind
02:43that you're the guy, you're the richest guy.
02:45It's quite funny because I think one of the first times
02:48Naveed comes out of the shop was the episode
02:52where his brothers died and he has to go to the funeral in India.
02:55So he goes to Jack and Victor's to ask them to run the shop.
02:59And Michael Hines, the director, said,
03:01you know, when you go to that close,
03:04walk around like you own the place.
03:06So I do.
03:07I totally like, I'm like that, flicking things, you know.
03:10Picking up the thing, what's this for?
03:12You're in someone's space and you're totally like, yeah.
03:15It's like, imagine King Charles came to your house.
03:17You'd be like, get the tea on.
03:19Come on, where's the biscuits?
03:21So that was kind of the dynamic with Naveed.
03:23He was definitely kind of, there was an arrogance there
03:25because he knew that he was the richest guy there.
03:27And he's channeled that, really.