Oct 20, 2026 11:37am IST
‘Ramayana’: Faisal Malik Reveals How Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk Became His Reference for Kumbhakarna (EXCLUSIVE)
Faisal Malik is stepping into a world unlike anything he has attempted before with Nitesh Tiwari’s "Ramayana." The actor, best known for playing Prahlad Chacha in "Panchayat", essays Kumbhakarna, Ravana’s formidable brother whose immense size and legendary six-month slumber make him one of the epic’s most distinctive characters. For Malik, bringing the mythological figure to life meant looking beyond Indian cinema for a reference point. One of his starting points was Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk. “We have all seen the Hulk and how Mark Ruffalo becomes the big green guy. That is a reference for me when I started imagining how I would look,” Malik tells Variety India in an exclusive interview.
For the actor, however, playing Kumbhakaran is about more than imagining the physical scale of a character who is far removed from an ordinary human being. Malik describes being part of that legacy as an opportunity he does not take for granted. “My experience of playing Kumbhakarna in ‘Ramayana’ is a dream come true. We grew up watching ‘Ramayana’, so playing a character from it feels like sheer luck. The challenge here is that this world is completely different for me. He isn't a normal human; he's massive, and he was in a deep sleep for six months. To keep all of that in mind and derive a final output is a tricky part,” Malik says.
The actor is equally conscious of the cultural afterlife of performances in stories such as the "Ramayana." Pointing to Ramanand Sagar’s television adaptation, he says, “The fact that these characters and even actors are immortal in the memory of the masses. Arun Govil ji played Lord Ram decades ago, and people till date worship him as Lord Rama.”
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That enduring connection is also what makes the role particularly meaningful to him. Malik hopes Kumbhakarna will give audiences another reason to connect with him beyond the character that made him a familiar face in "Panchayat". “The challenge is that I manage to make space in people's hearts as Kumbhakarna like I did with Prahlad Chacha from ‘Panchayat’. That will be a huge validation,” he adds.
Malik remains guarded about the specifics of the production, but says working on "Ramayana" has given him a sense of the scale of the undertaking. “I obviously cannot get into the details at the moment. But the process that I have gone through for the part and when it gave me a flashback of all the Hollywood BTS videos I have seen, I knew I was in very good hands and working on a landmark project,” he says.
Malik singles out Tiwari’s involvement in shaping Kumbhakarna. “Specifically for my character, Nitesh sir was so involved, especially because it is a one-of-a-kind character and they have to give more attention to how he looks, the size, and blending him in with the rest of the world. I just had to perform, and now I am waiting to see how the audience reacts to it. Because this is something I have never done before,” Malik says.
The experience also brought the excitement of collaborating with a new team and international specialists. “The thrill of working with a new team and with geniuses from the West was so exciting. We had to go through a lot of prep, and now I want the audience to like it. I have never seen something like this happen in India. It was an out-of-this-world experience for me,” he says.
Malik is also teasing more from the epic’s second installment. “You should wait and watch Part 2, there is so much more in store,” he says.
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