Not your typical film industry veteran, it바카라s hard to catch Naseeruddin Shah in a conversational mood when it comes to interviews. Thankfully, some 바카라right questions바카라 click with the actor par excellence. Here, Shah, who was last seen in the recently released Hope Aur Hum, talks to Prachi Pinglay-Plumber about the pretensions in erstwhile parallel cinema, what attracts him to some roles and not others, what he enjoys about present day movies and his unending love for Ismat Chugtai바카라s work, which he has staged time and again. Excerpts:
What draws to you a particular script or a story, especially when you are working with new directors, a new team?
It바카라s hard to say. I get drawn to different things at different times. I think it바카라s the heart in a script that really draws me in. A lot of scripts are written with an eye on what will be popular or what will titillate or what this actor can do well. I don바카라t think those kinds of scripts ever work. The ones I have done, the ones that have resonated with people, were scripts which were written from the heart, out of a genuine need to tell those stories. Whether you talk of an Aakrosh (1980), a Manthan (1976) or a Masoom (1983), these are the films that succeed. If I sense that the idea matters to the writer in a script, it immediately grabs me. If the writer is just trying to be clever, you can sense that too.
Do you see any similarities between the present alt-cinema movement and parallel cinema of the 70s and 80s? How are/were they different from commercial films?
I find this distinction bad. There are good films and bad films. There are films which are made in Rs 3.5 lakh and are very successful, like Chakra (1981) or Aakrosh. And there are films made in Rs 300 crore which are awful. Every film is a commercial film in my definition because it costs so much to make one. You can바카라t make a film for your personal satisfaction. That is why I detest the cinema of people like Mani Kaul. Firstly, it gives good cinema a bad name. Everyone equates good cinema with boring shots and boring films바카라where a character takes 10 minutes to walk down a corridor and still nothing happens at the end of the shot. Those films tried to be cool and fashionable by dispensing with drama, which in my opinion is absolute non-sense. You can바카라t dispense with drama in cinema. As Hitchcock said, cinema is real life without the dull parts.
What do you think of the digital revolution in cinema바카라online video platforms, short films, web series?
Yeah, it is fantastic. There are so many opportunities for filmmakers to test out their craft. They don바카라t have a producer sitting on their head, they don바카라t have to accommodate stars or think of budgets, they can make a film on their beliefs. I have acted in two or three such films and I really enjoyed it. It is very tough to make a short film. It바카라s like writing a short story, which is tougher than writing a novel. You can바카라t afford to faff around, you can바카라t indulge, you have to get to the point. This film, Café Interior Night, I did with Naveen (Kasturia), was shot in one night. Since the director was sorted, he knew what he was doing.
You are a writer and you바카라ve also directed; when you play different characters, do you get involved with those aspects of filmmaking as well?
I bring what I can to it. I personify the character. I try to look at it from the director바카라s point of view, which is a lesson I learnt after a few knocks바카라that you have to play the part as it is written and not as how you see it in your head. For example, Junoon (1978), one of my early films, is a wonderful film, but I hate my performance in it. I absolutely hate it. It바카라s still talked about, but only because of the energy, the acting is dreadful. It바카라s over the top and more than necessary and I played it like that against the wishes of the director because I just wanted to be the most powerful character in that film. I was an immature kid then, not even 26 or 27. So outdoing and outshining everyone was my desire, which is a foolish way. But I feel I had to go through that phase. And everyone needs to, in order to realise how futile it is. You shouldn바카라t be afraid of making a fool of yourself. Actors, who are afraid to make a fool of themselves will never be good actors.
You have written about learning acting at NSD and then unlearning it at FTII. What was it about NSD that didn바카라t click?
What pissed me off about NSD was their insistence on doing theatre only in Hindi. There were students from Marathi, Oriya, Manipuri, Malayalam, Bengali and Tamilian backgrounds and they were all asked to perform in Hindi or Urdu. Why can바카라t three Marathi students get together and do a play in Marathi? This is the National School of Drama, surely not the Hindi School of Drama. But this was Alkazi바카라s diktat and that바카라s why we ended up doing ghastly translations of Shakespeare, Moliere, Pinter and Chekov. Ghastly translations! I don바카라t like translations anyway. They never do justice to the original. The only purpose they serve is to put the work on record for those who don바카라t know that language.
I made no sense of the acting classes there. I was also at an age when I felt I knew everything바카라I was 20 when I joined. I felt I had all the answers and had nothing to learn. I believed I was the greatest actor in the world. So that바카라s also a reason why I didn바카라t learn much, but then I also look back on the way how acting was taught to us then. It was all the superficial elements바카라how to stand, how to catch the light. I can바카라t say it gave me nothing. It gave me confidence and a great deal of experience of performing on the stage, and nothing matches experience. It got me thinking. I was exposed to other forms of theatre, classical music, serious cinema, sculpture and painting. So it gave me a great deal, but an understanding of acting happened later, not at the NSD.
You often talk about importance of rehearsals, consistent rehearsals. How do you look at rehearsals and the element of spontaneity in acting, for both films and theatre?
It바카라s as simple as this. What made Sachin Tendulkar such a great player? And how did an equally talented player, let바카라s not take names, someone without that sense of discipline or commitment, do in life? If you ask Sachin why he practices every day, he will laugh and tell you that without practice, how could he be any good? It바카라s the same with acting.
The trouble is, most actors, young actors in particular, don바카라t know what they should do. And there is no one who can show them the right direction. An aspiring singer or dancer knows what disciplines he has to master. There are teachers who can guide them, rules they can adhere to. Actors don바카라t know where to look. I get asked this question by so many student actors바카라what do we do, how do we ready ourselves?
What do you tell them?
I tell them: decide for yourself the two most important things you are going to need as an actor, depending on what kind of actor you want to become. Some kids want to become an Amitabh Bachchan, some want to become Ranveer Singh, some Aamir Khan and some may want to be Naseeruddin Shah. Once it바카라s decided, identify the two things that you will definitely need. If you want to be Ranveer Singh, you need a very sexy physique and a huge amount of energy. He is bouncing off the walls and it바카라s great. If you want to be a Bachchan, you바카라d need the diction and the emotional truth. Whether you will be cast or not is not in your hand, you have to work on what is. Looking after your voice and your body is most important, so just start with that.
For an actor, how important is it to be aware and responsive to what is going on around him or her, in the world, in our society?
(Laughs) Actors are not interested in the rest of the world. Acting is the most insular profession in the world. It바카라s self-indulgent. It바카라s no way for a grown-up to earn a living. But it is great fun. That바카라s why we do it. Jokes apart, it depends on what kind of actor you want to become, where do your dreams end. If your dreams are limited to doing couple of hit films and getting an air conditioned flat and a fancy car, then that바카라s one thing. But if your dreams are bigger than that, and by that I don바카라t mean you become an international star, but if your dreams are that of a journey, of achieving something which might be of value to others, it바카라s another zone. Making a hit film is of no value to anyone else except yourself. So yes, if your aspirations are bigger, then you need to be aware, but if your aspirations are to see yourself on the cover of Stardust, then you have different priorities.
You work a lot with the younger generation of actors, directors바카라
I really admire this younger generation. I really do. These kids have gone beyond what we chaps did. They have been exposed to more, they are savvier. They get to see all kinds of cinema from around the world. We had to struggle so much. They lead a much more intense life than we did and their understanding of acting is better than that of our generation. It is a leap. It happens with succeeding generations and, maybe, the next generation will finally get there, reaching a stage where watching acting in our films won바카라t be downright embarrassing.
Your fascination with Ismat Chugtai바카라s work continues with your latest presentation on her life and her essays바카라Aurat!Aurat!!Aurat!!!. How do you go about staging prose? The last piece, Sone Ka Anda, is quite heavy.
Yeah. Even people who know Urdu find this piece difficult. Firstly, the language and the imagery are very complex. One has to really read into the story in order to appreciate it. And what it is talking about is also바카라it turns the knife in the wound. Men, in particular, don바카라t like it.
She wrote about things in 1940s which still hold true. Another story in the series, Shauhar Ki Khatir, is about Ismat바카라s experience of travelling in a train alone, where everyone is interested in knowing whether she is married. Even now if a girl is travelling alone, the first thing people want to find out is if she is married or not.
Some stories are not possible to stage. Manto바카라s Toba Tek Singh is one of the greatest short stories ever written, but it cannot be staged. The description of that character, the eponymous protagonist, is such that no actor can play it without tons of make-up, and tons of make-up will just look like tons of make-up.
Before this, I tried another set of stories of Ismat. But I read them for three months and abandoned the idea, because I realised they cannot be staged. One of them is called Hindustan Chod Do about an English officer who falls in love with a prostitute and after the Quit India movement, resigns and doesn바카라t leave. Just hangs around and dies on the streets. It바카라s a heart breaking story. But you can바카라t stage it, you can only tell such a story. I always stick to the text because what a great writer can describe something in one sentence, you need 10 min of film time to establish.
