Actor Adil Hussain, celebrated for roles that carry philosophical weight as much as dramatic skill, says the question driving his craft is deceptively simple — and universally urgent: 'Why am I doing what I'm doing?' The actor made these remarks ahead of the screening of his film '52 Blue' at the upcoming London Indian Film Festival.

Art as a Search for Meaning

Hussain draws on the ancient Indian treatise Natyashastra to frame his understanding of performance. 'If we consider acting as a form of art, which has been defined in Natyashastra, that pursuit of art is to find meaning. Why are we surviving on the planet? It is probably a never-ending pursuit,' he said. He was careful to resist framing this as a hierarchy of consciousness — preferring instead to call it a desire to go deeper, not higher.

For Hussain, this pursuit has roots stretching back to 1996, when he first played Mephistopheles — the devil — in Christopher Marlowe's celebrated play Dr. Faustus. The experience shook him profoundly.

Playing the Devil, Walking Toward Sainthood

'I was terrified and horrified after I played that. I was like, Oh my God, why am I doing this? What is the purpose of playing a devil, and the greater purpose of art in human society?' he recalled. His answer, arrived at through reflection, was counterintuitive: to embody evil convincingly, an actor must cultivate maximum compassion. 'In order to play a devil, I have to walk toward sainthood. A devil cannot embrace a saint, but a saint can embrace a devil,' he said.

He argued that any trace of personal judgment toward a role — disgust or distaste — would prevent genuine embodiment. The actor must approach even the darkest character with empathy, not condemnation.

Essentialism and the World at a Crossroads

Hussain extended this philosophy beyond theatre into a broader critique of human motivation. He suggested that most people act from fear — fear of survival, fear of financial insecurity — rather than from genuine purpose. 'The implications of our actions, which operate from fear of survival or fear of not living a comfortable life in the future, has brought the world to this juncture where we are fighting each other,' he said.

He drew an analogy to humanity's paradoxical relationship with exploration: humans have reached outer space yet remain unable to fully map the ocean floor — a metaphor, in his framing, for the gap between external achievement and inner understanding.

52 Blue and the London Indian Film Festival

The film '52 Blue', featuring Hussain, is set to be screened at the London Indian Film Festival, an event that regularly spotlights South Asian cinema with international reach. The screening provides fresh context for Hussain's reflections — a reminder that his philosophical rigour is not incidental to his work but central to it. He has been developing this line of inquiry, by his own account, since the mid-1990s.

As Hussain put it, the question of purpose is not a luxury reserved for artists. 'I feel that it should be a burning question on everybody's mind,' he said — a challenge as much to audiences as to fellow performers.