Naseeruddin Shah

[alexaha]

I don’t think Chak De and Taare... are great films’
Farhana Farook
Tuesday, April 01, 2008  23:59 IST     
 
Naseeruddin Shah tells Farhana Farook why he did an offbeat Pakistani film and why he finds the Bollywood tamasha  ‘disturbing’

What made you do the Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye?
I’ve been approached by Pakistani film-makers in the past perhaps because I’m a Muslim and also because my show Mirza Ghalib was very popular there. But I turned them down because even Bhojpuri cinema is better than those. But when director Shoaib Mansoor read out one scene to me, I was completely floored.

Why?
It was very important for such a film to be made. It talks about what it is to be a moderate Muslim and takes on the argument that all ‘Muslims may not be terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims’ head on. It takes on the mullas and challenges their authority. It’s a courageous film to be made in Pakistan. The fact that the public of Pakistan took to it shows that their mindset has not been affected by the mullas. In India too the moderate Muslim must make his voice be heard. We should be worried about more important issues than Sania Mirza’s skirt. We should be worrying about why our children are hungry and uneducated.

Having won much acclaim, are you satisfied as an actor?
I’m utterly bored of acting. I’ve completely given up hope about a decent film being made in the film industry. I don’t think Chak De India or Taare Zameen Par are great films. They are average. We are light years way from international standards. See a film like The Lives of Others and we send a film like Black to compete with it at the Oscars. We should be ashamed of ourselves. It’s like the famous story of the late Sohrab Modi (I don’t mean to run him down, he was a great filmmaker). He got a German cameraman to shoot his film Jhansi Ki Rani with an army of 10,000 people. He turned around to the cameraman and asked, ‘What do you think of the spectacle?’ He replied, ‘The spectacle is all fine but where is the drama?’

What do you enjoy doing then?
I find teaching satisfying. I spend a lot of time at Subhash Ghai’s academy. Theatre is stimulating. Life stimulates me too. 

You faced a trying time when Imaad (son and actor) was badly injured in a train accident...
Imaad is fine. But he has been very brave. Everybody commiserates with me and Ratna (Pathak, wife) for going through a bad phase. But we went through nothing when compared to him. I’ve not seen anybody bear pain with such dignity. My admiration for him has increased tenfold.

You seem to share a great bond with your children (daughter Heeba Shah, sons Imaad and Vivaan)...
I shared a troubled relationship with my father. He couldn’t understand me. I was a different kettle of fish for him, an alien. He died before we could resolve our relationship. I feel deprived about what I could not share with my father. So, I had resolved that I wouldn’t let this happen to my children.

You have no qualms working with debutant directors...
I was a newcomer once. I needed someone to have faith in me. If they hadn’t my life would have been different. I must have worked with more first-time makers than any other actor in the world and have never regretted it. I’ve often regretted working with veterans and established filmmakers.

Would you be excited about doing a mature romance?
I wish somebody would explore it. I did it in my film Yun Hota to Kya Hota. But the critics said ‘we don’t want old people jumping around in bed’. As if old people don’t have romance in their hearts and love in their lives!
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1158264&pageid=2
 

[Steena]

‘The madness keeps us going’

31 Aug 2008, 0000 hrs IST, SHARIN WADER ,TNN

It’s 7 am on Wednesday at Bandra Bandstand.

And taking the air on the promenade among the morning joggers and walkers is Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah. The two are back in a film after 12 years. BT dragged them out to talk, argue, share a few laughs while Bollywood awaits the return to screen of these two veterans. “I skipped my yoga class to meet you,” grumbled Naseer who was dressed in tracks. “So what,” said Anupan, similarly attired, “I was down with fever but the thought of being photographed with you got me excited.” And, putting his arm across his old National School of Drama co-star, Anupam led Naseer down the cobbled pathway as the two went from present into flashback by the sea...

BT: You’ll last acted together in the 1996 film Chahat starring Shah Rukh Khan and Pooja Bhatt. What happened after that?

Naseer: We have a problem with each other!

Anupam: I feel insecure if he is in the same film. In our new film, maine socha Naseer ne mujhse achchi acting ki hai. So I called the producer and reshot my scenes.

Naseer: But what you don’t know is that maine bhi bina batayein film mein ek gaana dalwa diya. I’m playing a terrorist in this film but there’s a twist in the tale which justifies his actions. This film is an appeal to everyone’s conscience. It asks you how long you are going to sit down and watch.

Anupam: I believe in the theme, too.

BT: But so many films being made on terrorism...

Naseer: But isn’t it better than watching a rich-boy-meets-poor-girl film? It’s wonderful that filmmakers are tackling such issues nowadays which show the real world rather than showing the sugar-coated alps of Switzerland.

Anupam: I feel such films are made because there’s a change in the audience’s perception or else how would you explain the bombing of big films and the success of small films like Khuda Ke Liye.

Naseer: Yes, and that too it’s a Pakistani film with unrecognisable faces, yet people watched it instead of Tashan which has all the actors we like. Now it’s the film and not the stars that people watch.

Anupam: True, it’s not the stars that make the film, but the content. The last time I had seen such huge hoardings of myself was when Saaransh was released. Mein apne car se uttar ke dance karne laga!

Do you watch each others’ films?

Anupam: Shub shub bolo. Why torture him with my films?

Naseer: He doesn’t watch half of his own films. And I have not watched some of mine either, like the recent Mere Baap Pehle Aap and Jaane tu... .

Anupam: I don’t watch his films because phir mujhe complex ho jayega. I remember when I came to Bombay and bought my first car and you gave me a proud look that said, “Wow, you have got a car now!” I also remember your expression after you watched one of my memorable films, and it was like “Kya kar rahe ho, yaar?”

Naseer: You buying a car was like a personal achievement for me. We actors are getting our due at last. As beginners we didn’t have a ghost of a chance to succeed in the industry and I think if we didn’t have unshakeable faith in ourselves, we would have succumbed to the pressures.

Anupam: I think it’s also the madness in us that kept us going.

Naseer: That quality is common between us besides the fact that we faced rejection when we started. I remember when I went to the film institute, people asked me what course I had come for. Acting! Eh? Shakal dekhi hai?

Anupam: Tell me about it...

[Steena]

‘Yusuf Khan didn’t need to be Dilip Kumar’

6 Sep 2008, 0000 hrs IST, ANSHUL CHATURVEDI ,TNN

 Naseeruddin Shah’s latest movie has a scene where a Bollywood star, asking for protection against extortion threats, confides to the police commissioner that he is being targeted since he belongs to the minority community.

When the commissioner, eyebrows arched, tersely asks him, “Mr Arjun Khanna, how do you belong to the minority community?” he answers with a straight face that since the Khans are in a clear majority in his industry, he – along with the likes of Amitji – obviously belongs to the minority community!

Ask Naseer if he believes that there is actually any discomfort level within the film industry, what with stories of fringe groups seeking attention by warning Muslim actors not to be part of Indian cinema, or the debates that arose post Saif and Shabana talking about their house hunting experiences in Bombay – oops, Mumbai (with due apologies to Raj Thackeray) – and his answer isn’t the dismissive “of course not” that one was expecting.

“Hmm, well, no, there isn’t... but one is sensing the divide more and more these days. And it is making me unhappy, because I haven’t felt it before.” Felt what? “An assertion of a Muslim identity. An assertion of a Hindu identity.” Within the film industry? “In the city of Bombay, I’d say generally,” he says. And after a moment’s pause, foregoes being politically correct. “And yes, in the film industry too. The Muslim presence has always been very strong in the industry anyway. A majority of stuntsmen, for example, or musicians, have generally been Muslims. But there was no sense of an assertion of identity, in ethnic terms, in all the years that I have seen the industry, by any side.”

That is what we believe, as well. And the uninterrupted reign of the Khans is evidence many times over that the audience hasn’t had an ethnic perspective while appreciating what the industry produces, either. A Yusuf Khan wouldn’t ever need to acquire a Dilip Kumar persona in today’s times, would he? “I don’t think it was needed even then,” Naseer is quick to respond. But then, if it wasn’t a sensitive point earlier, why would it have been done? “It’s their own demons. I think Dilip Kumar would have been as successful, would have been the same grade of actor if he had been Yusuf Khan. I don’t know what his reasons were, so I can’t comment on them. But I don’t think what he did, in this context, set a good precedent.”

A discussion on religious identities and the cine industry in Mumbai is bound to veer to the inevitable question, even if it’s predictable – what’s his take on the points made by Shabana Azmi? Naseer is anything but smiling while responding to this one. “I don’t know if these issues need to be pursued with the kind of fervour they generate. I don’t see the point in raking up something that may have happened to someone, many years back, on account of one biased human being, and generalise on that. I wonder if Muslims are the only community that are discriminated against in such terms. I don’t think so. I think each community gets used when it’s convenient, politically, to use it... And that apart, some buildings don’t allow Sikhs, some don’t allow Christians, some don’t allow Muslims – and some are exclusively for Christians, some are exclusively for Muslims. So?”

But when Saif and Shabana speak on the issue, it will get noticed, won’t it? “Yes, but the press is quick to play up what it considers printworthy. I don’t always agree. For instance, when I read terms like ‘top terrorist’, ‘top dacoit’ – I feel they are being given box office star status! Why should they be? And why should some stupid wannabe politician who is trying to create trouble in a city – why should the press give someone like that so much coverage? But the press would say, it’s printworthy. And the media is omnipresent. Which is why these questions are tossed about so much more these days. I wish they were examined a bit more, though.”

What’s his personal take on it all? “I know I may be living in a fool’s paradise, but I have never faced any kind of discrimination in the course of my life, nor have any of my brothers, one of whom has served with great distinction in the army all his career. My dad, who was a government official, refused to go to Pakistan when he had a choice. He didn’t buy this idea of a Muslim nation. He didn’t face any discrimination, and neither have we. That’s my take on it.”

[alexaha]

'Stereotyped portrayal of Muslims annoys me'
IANS
Tuesday, September 09, 2008  12:54 IST     
 
 
MUMBAI: Thespian Naseeruddin Shah is appalled at the way minority communities are still stereotyped in Hindi films and says that he consciously chose to play a suave, articulate, bomb-planting mastermind in "A Wednesday".
 
"The bearded, hitched-pyjama look for the Muslim always annoys me," Naseer said.

Being an Indian Muslim, wouldn't it seem outwardly incorrect, at least politically, for him to play the role he essays in "A Wednesday"?

"When I heard the role I immediately said yes. Just because I'm playing a terrorist doesn't mean I become one," he quipped.

"Decades ago, I did a film called 'Adharshila' that had a young filmmaker being humiliated by a top industrialist. When we asked this gentleman to play the part, he suggested he play someone who helps rather than humiliates the filmmaker. The point is by playing a part an actor doesn't subscribe to its philosophy. I had no hesitation in doing 'A Wednesday'. My character is named Anonymous. Till the end his name isn't mentioned."

Naseer had earlier created ripples by playing a progressive maulvi (Muslim cleric) in the Pakistani film "Khuda Ke Liye".

"The fact that such provocative parts of people who stand up and state their point of view heedless of the consequences are being written is heartening. Surprisingly there were no protests in India against the arguments in 'Khuda Ke Liye'," said the actor, who won much critical acclaim for his performance in the film.

"Filmmakers just need to get their research right and there's no need to get unnecessarily provocative. If you end up with a bullet in your head, you aren't there to fight for the cause you believe in. My character in 'Khuda Ke Liye' knew the Koran in and out."

Naseer admitted that he discovered aspects of the Koran while doing director Shoaib Mansoor's "Khuda Ke Liye".

"Like most Muslims I had read the holy Koran as a child without understanding it. The problem with a majority of Muslims in India is that we read the Koran without understanding it and we allow the so-called authorities to interpret it for us. The first thing every Muslim needs to do is to understand the Koran more deeply and not allow others to interpret it for them. I've read the Koran but I'm far from being an authority on it."

"A Wednesday" released along with two other films on terrorism - "Hijack" and "Tahaan" -  and "Mumbai Meri Jaan", which has a similar theme, was out two weeks ago. Aren't there too many films on terrorism?

Said Naseer: "Hopefully they aren't meant to titillate. Maybe five-six films on the after-effects of extremism in a few months would be a case of overkill. 'A Wednesday' was ready for a year. For some reason it's being released weeks after another film 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' with a similar backdrop."

 
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1188766&pageid=0

[Steena]

I won’t ever direct a film again: Naseer

Reema Gehi, Hindustan Times
Mumbai, September 09, 2008

Right now, the 58-year-old actor is being crowned with laurel leaves for a tour de force performance in A Wednesday. More movies are on the way: Shoot on Sight, Firaaq and 7 to the Palace. Yet the actor has never wavered from his commitment to theatre. Four months ago, his theatre group — Motley — celebrated the completion of three decades with a play fest which ran to full houses.

Over time, Motley has explored varied works like those of Samuel Beckett, Ismat Chughtai and Munshi Premchand. A new play Tilism-E-Hoshruba is in the works for the year-end. In the foyer of Juhu’s Prithvi Theatre, an hour before Motley’s All Thieves premieres, I grab the quintessential Shahspeak with a sting:

What kind of a response did you expect for A Wednesday?
For me, it was important to make this film happen. Of course, I am glad that it has been well received. If not, I would have felt bad and moved on. Neeraj Pandey (the director) would have been devastated though.

Anupam Kher and you teamed up after..
(Cuts in)

How was it working with him?
(Irritated) This question should be banned! (Pause) I like Anupam as an actor and a person. He has been hungry to do good cinema for a long time. I’m glad this film happened to him. I’m happy about the acclaim he is receiving for his performance.

Doesn’t the success or a failure of a film matter to you?
I don’t act in films with any kind of expectations. I just do them. At times, it’s for the money or the script. At times, it’s because it’s a friend’s project. And at times, it’s because I like my role.

What’s your primary concern while acting?
Being honest to the performance. In fact, I don’t like meeting anyone from the audience after a stage performance. They are very self-conscious and pretentious in their responses. Instead, I enjoy the reaction of the audience during a performance. In the case of a film, it’s a longer affair.

Some films have been joyous experiences but of some films, the lesser said the better.

Like?
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was sheer hell and torture, it wasn’t fun at all, it was horrible. I would never like to go through that experience again. On the other hand, some dreadful films have been great fun to make. Like Chakra was a wretched film but it was among the first art movies to do well commercially.

Has luck or coincidence played a part in your career?
Perhaps. Luck involves being at the right place at the right time. From the National School of Drama, our batch went to the Pune Film Institute. I hoped that would make my entry into films easier. So I was at the right place at the right time. Shyam Benegal spotted me and cast me in Nishant. Around then, filmmakers were looking for actors like Om (Puri), Kulbhushan (Kharbanda), Anupam (Kher), Amol (Palekar), Amrish (Puri) and myself, who could represent real people. We fitted the bill perfectly.

Does cinema portray real people at all today?
You cannot portray a real person in Yash Chopra’s movies. Some movies at least try, like Mumbai Meri Jaan and Life in a Metro. Anurag Kashyap and Rajat Kapoor also make an effort to be real. I have hope from the generation of relatively young filmmakers. They won’t make esoteric, arty and boring films. They are less pretentious, unlike the moviemakers of the 1970s.

Are you hinting at some specific directors?
There were these filmmakers who were making tall claims, beating drums and swearing that they would change the face of Indian cinema, the world and all that rubbish. Nothing of the sort happened. But during the 1970s, there was a new wave of Indian cinema.

So what happened to this wave?
Make a list of the work of all the filmmakers of the 1970s. Then, make a list of the films they are making today and you’ll see what happened to the new wave of Indian cinema.

Does the intelligence factor work in the realm of Bollywood?
Yes. Astuteness of a certain kind does.

Which is?
(Laughs) The intelligence to promote yourself.

Does star power supercede quality acting?
Of course, it does. Why do you even ask such a question?

Can theatre actors find their foothold in films?
Yes.. only if you go by the graph of Amrish Puri. He did some marvellous work in theatre and some lucrative work in films. You won’t find a single actor who began his career in the movies, excelling in theatre. Never.. there isn’t any actor in the world. But the reverse has always been true. All the highly regarded actors.. whether in America, England, Poland, France or Germany.. started off in theatre.

[Steena]

Like Father, Like Son

Amitava Sanyal , Hindustan Times
September 29, 2008

Naseeruddin Shah wants to be known as his son’s father. But his father’s shadow is getting longer in his own life. Amitava Sanyal speaks to the actor.

A dream dreamt four years back untangled the toughest knot in Naseeruddin Shah’s life. “There was this large, forbidding interview table… shiny, black-top. Behind it sat my father, alone, in the middle. He asked me what I had achieved in life, and I told him all that I wanted to say about him — his rage, his old-school backwardness, his intolerance. All the things I could never tell him in person,” says the 58-year-old, his eyes misty, his voice broken.

Naseeruddin’s father, Ale Mohamed Shah, a government employee who had a searing ambition for his three sons, didn’t live to see the success of the youngest. Before he passed away, all he saw was Nishant (1975), Naseeruddin’s first feature. He never came for the other shows, ridiculed the young actor on his career choice, and constantly compared him to the other brothers — Zaheer, an IIT engineer, and Zameer, an army officer. Between deep drags from a spliff, the subversive-that’s-me son laughs while recounting how his father had once caught him smoking up and the torrent of strictures it had resulted in.

To the ambitious son, it was his father’s non-acceptance that became a long-lived trauma. And it was this ghost that was laid to rest with the vivid dream. “Now I have long conversations with him at his grave in Sardhana,” says the actor, back in his composure.

But there are also other painful memories of ‘father figures’. First there were the “cruel” missionaries at St Joseph’s, Nainital. A 12-year-old Naseeruddin was socked by one Brother Burke for imitating his accent. “It wasn’t a spanking; I bled from the blow.” Then, at St Anselm’s, the Ajmer school Naseeruddin was shifted to, there was a friend’s father who tried to get fresh with him. “I kicked his balls and walked away,” says the unforgiving one. It was also at St Anselm’s that Naseeruddin came into his own as an actor. There was no looking back from his first role — as Shylock. “Suddenly, the idiot from the other school became popular. I got better at studies and even made it to the school cricket team, which was my other passion.” The wave of adulation carried him right through an English-literature bachelor’s at Aligarh Muslim University and three years at Delhi’s National School of Drama (NSD). Then, the wave crashed on the shore of a pitiless, self-reflected reality.

Sitting next to the NSD boys’ hostel, where his was the first batch, Naseeruddin says, “[Ebrahim] Alkazi-saab used to say how lazy I was. While revising my lines for the batch’s last production — [Eugène] Ionesco’s Lesson — it dawned that I’d been an idiot not to work hard all this while. Every revision made me better.” The mind’s bulb stayed lit through the next course, at Pune’s Film and Television Institute. “The only one from my batch of 22 there who’s recognisable today is — can you believe it? — Shakti Kapoor.

A few years later in Mumbai, there was this swanky Honda honking incessantly behind my taxi. I turned around to see Shakti, grinning ear-to-ear. I’ve not seen him happier since that day some 30 years ago. But my ambitions were, of course, a bit different,” says the actor with a wry smile, the self-assurance back in force. “My teacher Girish Karnad recommended me to Shyam Benegal for the first film,” says the veteran of more than 145 films.

Govind Nihalani, who was cinematographer of Nishant, wedges a factoid into this phase of his old friend’s career: “On Girish’s recommendation, I introduced him to [director-animator] Ram Mohan, who cast him in Loan Sharks, a short docu-feature on Pathan moneylenders. Then Shyam-babu met him.” The rest is the stuff that films are made of. “Today, my daughter [Heeba] lives on her own. My younger son [Vivaan] has enrolled at St Stephens’ and wants to be an actor. The other one [Imaaduddin] wants to be a musician. He has a group that plays here and there, earns a few thousand rupees.” Is there a hint of his own father in that patronising tone? “You’re right,” says the man who claims that he wants to be known eventually as his ‘son’s father’. “As a man grows older he becomes his father, doesn't he?”

[Steena]

‘Common man should fight terrorism’

17 Oct 2008, 0008 hrs IST, SHALABH ANAND BAJPAI , TNN

Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah may be media shy but when he speaks, everyone is all ears. LT caught up with the star post his return from London.

Naseer has an impressive list of films to his credit. Ask him how he chooses his films and he says, “I don’t know. I only go with what my heart says, and somehow my films are liked by the audiences too. I love to do serious roles. I’m not concerned who’s directing nor do I do movies for money,” says the actor whose A Wednesday was highly appreciated .

We ask Naseer what’s the difference between parallel and commercial cinema is and he shrugs, “I don’t know what is an art film and what is what because the media has categorised it that way. I only know acting and nothing else.

How is his upcoming movie, which deals with terrorism, is different from A Wednesday? “The concept of terrorism is the same but my upcoming movie is for individual identity and based on the bombings in London in 2005. This film will show the fallout of the bombings on the Asians living in London. It basically shows how Pakistanis were targeted after the bombings. The film is in favour of Pakistan but don’t know why the Pakistani government has banned it still.

Talking about his role and the controversy surrounding the film, Naseer says, “In the film I play a man of Pakistani origin who is a Scottish policeman. And since a Pakistani is behind the bombings, Ali is also partly blamed for it. The controversy regarding the film is that the whole film is in English and when the producers thought of releasing it in India, they wanted to do it in Hindi. But I was against it. In the film I have a family which is British. How can they speak Hindi? It will look so odd. Besides, it will affect the film.

A lot of filmmakers today are tackling the subject of terrorism. Why does he think that’s so? It is the main problem of every country and films also shows what people can do to tackle the situation.

Does he feel that the common man should come forward and fight terrorism? Yes, he should fight terrorism. Since government can’t do much about it, in A Wednesday I have shown what a common man can do when it comes to his own life.

Naseer’s son Imad to has made a foray into acting and commenting upon the comparisons with his son, he says, I don’t know about Imad. But yes, no one can be like me because people think I am selfish and self-centred.

[v9y]

"I am not enjoying movies anymore"

Naseeruddin Shah speaks to Rachana Dubey on all that is important to him...

This seems like a busy year for you with a string of movies, Barah Aana, Firaaq, Ishqiya and Rajneeti coming up.
Yeah, but now I don’t want to take on anymore projects because I’m not enjoying the movies anymore. I’ve done enough. I would rather channelise my energies towards theatre now. That’s a more satisfying medium than the movies.

Also, theatre hasn’t been affected by the global meltdown, right?
Theatre isn’t a medium which will get affected by recession. Of course, those who did plays like Lord Ram and Kargil War, will be affected because theatre is not a money-generating medium. We can put up plays because we have the Prithvi Theatre to perform at.
People who love the medium get invited or buy tickets.  If the play becomes popular, we get invited to perform at other venues as well. The revenue earned is pumped into the next play. I no longer have to earn money for my theatre group from my movies. But the money in theatre is hardly comparable to the movies. 

What made you choose a movie like Barah Aana being made by a newbie director Raja Menon?
There’s a joke in Hollywood. Once, a filmmaker sent his script to a master actor. He returned the script with ‘rejected’ scrawled on it. The guy went running to the actor and protested, “You’ve not even read the whole script. I had attached page 25 with page 50.

The order hasn’t changed.” The actor said, “I didn’t need to. I don’t have to eat the whole egg to say that it’s bad. I don’t even have to swallow the first bite. If I like it, I will have the whole of it.” Similarly, I can smell a project from its opening pages. I don’t read all the scripts which come to me. I heard the concept of Raja’s film and agreed to do it instantly.

Om Puri recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award.. but you have yet to win such an award.
I’m very happy for Om. But it doesn’t matter really that I didn’t win.

A Wednesday didn’t bag a single award despite nominations in several categories.
(Sarcastically) I know, that’s terrible. I had told producer Anjum (Rizvi) that we should have started our campaign much earlier. We were late in booking the awards.

Anjum Rizvi is apparently very upset.
Yeah, I’m sure he was naïve enough to believe that awards had some meaning. Neeraj (Pandey) and he went all decked up for it.

At some award show, the Critics Award was announced for Mumbai Meri Jaan. Later a jury member came up and said that the previously announced award actually had two winners.. and gave a trophy to Neeraj also. There was no explanation about how that slip up happened.

Anyone who takes these random award shows seriously needs a psychiatrist. For Anjum to believe that he would win an award was dumb. When I spoke to him after the show, he was nearly in tears.

You were nominated in the best actor category alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan. 
(Hiding his face) Oh, you also know about this now? I can’t tell you how upset I am for not having won the award. Don’t you know by now that I only work with the awards in mind? I’m so angry.  (Laughs) I’m not surprised by their choices though. Maybe next year, they will give me something. 

Kamal Haasan is remaking A Wednesday in Tamil and will be playing your part.
Okay, but why just mine? (Laughs) He should be playing all the parts.

Any tips for Mr Haasan?
No, no, he’s got enough of those tips.

According to Om Puri A Wednesday was provocative.
Okay, so what was Ghajini? Next they will say Barah Aana is provocative because it shows three victims of social imbalance
fighting it out in their own way. I’m sure they will think we are propagating negative views in the guise of a social yarn.

If our society could be so easily inspired by cinema, it would have been an utopian society. It’s not because we don’t get inspired by the family values and ethos being talked about in the movies.

The number of old age homes and deprived parents are rising every day. The crime rate in India is the highest in Asia. All those who say that A Wednesday was provocative are faux intellectuals.
 
Reportedly, UTV has sold the rights to Kamal Haasan.
How could they do that? That’s so unfair! Neeraj has no rights over his own creative work now.. and he won’t be getting his dues from the film? (Looks aghast) This means everyone except Neeraj and Anjum will make good money out of the movie. Anjum had been so keen on the project. He holds it very close to his heart.. so much so  that he sat on the project for a long time before involving another producer.

Reports are that the U K will not permit movies on terrorism to be shot there in future.
I didn’t know about this development. But it was bound to happen. Cultural fascism is raising its head everywhere. They are
censoring scripts now.

Long ago, I had stumbled upon a movie which was never released in India. It was horrible, made by some goras.. with a German lookalike of Mahatma Gandhi. It was called Nine Hours to Rama.

It dealt with Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination from Nathuram Godse’s point of view. That was reason enough to ban the film
in India.

Will you direct again?
Never! It’s too much hard work and a gamble of sorts. I don’t have that much energy now. Yun Hota To Kya Hota did fall short in a lot of places but a lot of people liked it too. Still, at the end of it, it didn’t do well commercially.

Do you think Slumdog Millionaire was worth the eight Oscars it won?
I’m surprised by the way we are lapping it up. Everyone is going gaga saying that it’s an Indian film when it’s hardly Indian. The movie has been shot in India.. that’s it! We can’t get over the fact that India has been applauded in the west.

There’s nothing new that they presented about Dharavi.
Somewhere it was said that it’s the first of its kind to be shot in the Dharavi slums. I would advise people who say that to go and watch Chakra and Dharavi. I have shot innumerable times in the locality.

I think the booking for awards was fabulously done for Slumdog.. their marketing outdid a much more deserving Frost/Nixon.
Slumdog.. was a Cindrella story. The ethos were real.. the rest wasn’t. If they ever attempted a sequel to it and showed what
happened to Jamal after he won, then that would be worth a watch.

Do you think the slum kids can sustain their instant fame?
Their lives have changed undoubtedly. After travelling first class to the U S, sitting in suits and gowns in the Kodak Theatre, they will no longer sleep peacefully in their slum homes.

One of the kids, I read, was complaining that he can’t sleep because there are mosquitoes in the house. The little boy was slapped by his father for not giving press interviews. It bothers me how these kids will survive.

Once, I was shooting for a Hindi movie in Dubai. We needed four guys to play my henchmen. The production team got a short Thapa boy. He used to work in a five star hotel in Juhu.

They flew him down to Dubai. He stayed at a five star hotel for a month.. was possibly supplied with women too. After that, he came back and got back to work.

The last time I saw him, it was somewhere near Juhu, staring at torn film posters. He was in rags. That’s what sudden ‘fame’ can do to an individual.

Have you received your share of fame and money in this industry?
Of course. But I am not leaving any of that for my children. I will spend every rupee I’ve earned on myself. Let my kids fend for themselves.

What if Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was to be remade today?
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron just happened. It wasn’t made. I don’t think a remake should be attempted.

Will you be working with Rajeev Rai now that he’s announced his next?
I don’t think so. He hasn’t spoken to me about his project yet.

What’s your son Imaad up to?
He’s preparing for his final year B A exams. I won’t decide what he has to do.. he will. He plays the guitar at public spots. He’ll
pursue whatever he wants to. If I was in his shoes, I’d have done plays, if possible.

[Anamika]

Friday, March 19, 2010
A conversation with Naseeruddin Shah

[Excerpts from my talk with Naseeruddin Shah during the shooting of “The Hunt” in Vagamon – earlier posts about that trip here, here and here. This is in Q&A form, but I have lots of other material – watching Naseer at work, on the sets and between shots – which I’ll be writing as a flowing piece at some point. When you have nearly 15,000 words that are part-interview, part-observation, it’s very difficult to know how to organise them!]

In "The Hunt", Naseer plays a recluse known only as “Colonel”, living in a forest retreat secured by high-tech surveillance equipment. Here he cultivates a very potent variety of marijuana, an activity that makes him the object of much unwanted attention, and his life is further complicated when he is forced to play host to a young woman who is in mortal danger.

WHY HE DID THIS FILM

When we spoke in connection with Jaane bhi do Yaaro last year, you mentioned that in the early 1980s you were saying yes to practically any director who came to you with a novel/offbeat script – that you wanted to support people who were doing interesting things. Are you doing this very low-budget, non-Bollywood movie for similar reasons?

I never really stopped working in small films. I may have been very critical of the “art” filmmakers I used to work with, but even when I started doing commercial movies and working three shifts a day, I always did find the time for an interesting, offbeat, low-budget movie.

I often wondered why people like Govind Nihalani and Ketan Mehta, who had made very effective low-budget films, didn’t attempt a popular film in the same budget; why were the zeroes to be increased manifold in order to make a popular film? If you could make a Bhavni Bhavai - a perfectly convincing recreation of a period - or an Aakrosh in three-and-a-half lakh rupees, why do you need Rs 20 crore to make a film today? Why can’t you make a popular film with a smaller budget? I couldn’t understand why no one attempted it – I believed it was possible, and also highly desirable. The ballooning budgets of Bollywood are getting out of hand, and the bubble is going to burst someday, like it happened in Hollywood with Cleopatra.

That’s one of the things that drew me to Anup’s project. I was reasonably impressed with his first film, Manasarovar – I wasn’t bowled over, but I felt that here’s someone who’s trying to say what he wants to say without blowing up money on unnecessary things. When he came to me, I said yes straight away. It seemed to me that this script represented an opportunity to make a commercially viable film with a low budget.

What I meant was that Anup Kurian is outside the Bollywood circle in a way that even someone like Rajat Kapoor or Neeraj Pandey isn’t – in that sense, The Hunt is an atypical film for you to be doing, more so than Mithya or A Wednesday.

True, but I thought this was a project with integrity; here is a guy whose prime motive in making this film is not to multiply his bank account but to make the kind of film that he likes.

The script, when I finally got it, was pretty damn good. I thought there were a few things I could add to it, and it’s worked out well so far.

How did you prepare for the character? How did the dreadlocks happen?

When I first read the script and saw that the character is called Colonel, I said there’s no way I’m going to have a handlebar moustache and a crew-cut! I think Anup wanted that sort of look. We were trying to figure it out when one day he emailed me and said “What is Colonel’s real name?” The script never tells us this – he has a bunch of fake identity cards.

So I started thinking about this – where does “Colonel” come from? Now, Pankaj Parashar, who made Jalwa, one of my favourite films, has been talking nonstop about doing Jalwa 2. We never got around to it, we haven’t seen eye to eye on it, but I thought to myself, hey, what if Colonel is the cop from Jalwa? This is the guy who busted a narcotics ring, shot the head guy and for his pains was dismissed from the service. It fits in perfectly, because such a thing WOULD happen to an inspector who goes and shoots a Dawood-like character; he would be fucked for life. So he has nothing to live for and he says okay, I’m going to grow marijuana and survive. Fuck honesty, fuck the police force after what they’ve done to me.”

I saw Jalwa as a 10-year-old and I think that was the first time I really noticed you. The boring, art-house actor as muscle man. You rocked.

It was the first time a lot of kids noticed me! That film was ahead of its times, it was the forerunner of MTV and all this slick filmmaking today. So what if it was a Beverly Hills Cop remake? Even Paar was a Do Bigha Zameen remake!

There’s this gym I go to – infrequently – and this beefy young man came up to me, started to touch my feet, and said, “Sir, I saw Jalwa when I was 10 and I started bodybuilding because I thought if YOU can do it, then I can definitely do it!”

Now there’s a backhanded compliment.

Yes, he must have seen me in some bloody Sunayana or some such film before that! (Laughs) He was off to a bodybuilding competition. I want your blessings, sir, he said, so I told him solemnly: God bless you. No idea if he won or what happened.

Anyway, for me, this is the sequel to Jalwa. I haven’t discussed it with Anup though.

I thought Colonel would be a guy who lives alone, a chap people wouldn’t approach easily – an enigmatic, hermit-like figure. And I always wanted to have long hair so I suggested it to Anup – he was taken aback at first but then he saw it as adding to the enigma of the character.

This hair attachment is stitched on to my own hair – I’m stuck with it till the end of the shooting. It’s horrible, but worth it for the movie.

The Colonel is a fairly laconic man, there aren’t many obvious character tics.

No. He’s a person you can’t figure out. I thought the relationship with the girl is interesting – here’s a lovely young thing brought to him, and it’s impossible for him to remain unmoved, he isn’t a machine after all. It’s an intriguing relationship – two very different people thrown together in an unresolvable situation.

ON ACTING

You prepare meticulously for each character, but I’ve noticed that you don’t like theorising too much about acting technique.

Yes, because there’s so much hocus-pocus about acting styles and so on, there’s too much mysticism attached to it. But it’s a craft like any other, it’s something you have to work hard at. It isn’t like some people are born with “God-given talent”.

(Jokingly) Some people say ‘charakter nikaalna hai’, par character ‘nikalta’ kaise hai, yeh baat mujhe samajh nahin aati!

I believe any person can act, just like any person can sing. Any voice is capable of any sound. There’s no such thing as a be-sura person. People labour under this impression “main gaa nahin sakta”. But it might be more accurate to say that something happened to you in childhood because of which you can’t sing, whereas other people didn’t have that experience.

(Reflectively) I can recall being shouted at for singing or listening to music when I was young, by my dad – how dare you put on the radio without asking me, etc.

But when you do a Pestonjee or an Ishqiya, or play Gandhi on stage, and you’re talking in a voice or an accent that isn’t your own, does that need a significantly different approach?

The intent is never to look different for the sake of it, that’s a wrong approach in my opinion. Acting is not an end in itself. There was a time when I only wanted to show off, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realised that you act to communicate something, you’re a messenger. In order to get that message across uncorrupted and complete, if you have to use an accent or grow a beard or become thin or fat or muscular, that’s your job as an actor.

There have been times when I’ve appeared repetitive and people have complained. But I’m built like this, I can’t do plastic surgery and become a different person – I’m representing a character as best as I can given my own physicality and appearance. There are certain features which I cannot change. But if I manage to communicate what the writer and director intended, then I think it’s a success.

Actors have huge egos and consider themselves the centre of the universe. But I’m trying to overcome that and this is why I’ve started teaching so much – because I feel it’s terribly important to communicate to youngsters that everyone can’t get leading roles all their lives.

I loved guys like Charles Laughton, Spencer Tracy, Paul Muni – he was the first truly original film actor among those who became famous. One similarly owes a debt to the early Dilip Kumar, the early, pre-Zanjeer Amitabh Bachchan. When you see their old work now it looks dated, but you can’t deny history.

I think there’s going to be a quantum leap in the standard of acting in India. It happened in America in the 1950s and one of the reasons for it was the advent of TV. Because on the small screen, people saw real conversations, real grief-stricken families for the first time, and they could distinguish between that and the stylised, mannered acting they had been seeing on the big screen before that.

Actors of today are photographed from the moment they are born almost. The camera is no longer an object of terror for them, the way it used to be for us. When I was a kid, getting photographed was an event. “Next month on the 25th we are going to Meerut to get photographed,” some one in the family would say, and we got all dressed up and went and there was this huge scary tripod.

Today’s actors aren’t as self-conscious about the camera. On the whole, they are better actors than our generation was.

You’ve often expressed your view that many of the old “parallel” films are mediocre and overrated. What do you feel is wrong with them? Is it the technical clunkiness or something at the level of the script?

What one saw was a lack of insight into how people behave, and to me – speaking as an actor – that was the first reason for disillusionment. It amazed me that some of those directors couldn’t see that a certain type of behaviour was false. It’s not a question of “underacting” or “overacting” – I don’t believe in those terms – it’s just a question of behaving truthfully, in a situation where you’re unlocking your door for example, or parking your bicycle. Many of these directors could not see what a performance would look like on the screen, 32 times magnified. They wanted the impact right there.

There were instances, while making Junoon or Manthan, for instance, where I would do a take and everyone sitting there would applaud. Now that’s a terrible, terrible thing to do to an actor, particularly a young, inexperienced, vain actor – because he then starts performing to the people present rather than communicating with the camera. Then the performance would get further magnified when you saw it on the screen, and that’s why it looked like shit.

None of these filmmakers ever did a study on the dynamics/mechanics of acting. The truth is, they always looked down on actors or resented them. Perhaps with good reason, because among the Film Institute graduates, it was always the actors who got the acclaim and were the first to buy an imported car, a house etc. The directors would make a movie, slog their butts off and the actors would get the attention, being the most visible component.

Their first movies were very good in many cases, or at least competent, but after that it was downhill. I used to feel, why don’t these people make movies about the things that affect them? Why are they sitting on Malabar Hill and making films about the starving peasants of Bihar? A lot of them would talk about their next film and make it sound very exciting but then they’d say “You know, I need a bigger budget. I’ll probably have to cast somebody famous.” And their justification was, “We need to get across to a bigger audience.” And I’d say: WHY? When you started your career you decided to take the path less travelled, you didn’t have much of an audience when you made your first film, you didn’t even care for the audience then. Now, suddenly, why do you need to get across to a bigger audience?

Anyway, they all made the fatal mistake of getting saleable actors. And the moment you take on a saleable actor the whole bloody odour of a project changes. To my mind, this was the biggest mistake: casting actors who have made their lives and careers and reputations by being synthetic. These guys have practised it, they’ve turned it into a fine art – being “convincingly synthetic”. And you are casting such actors and expecting them to play real people? They just can’t do it! Even the most gifted of them, Mr Bachchan, can’t do it any more. He has become a synthetic person. I would tell them this and they would say you are just envious.

Cast a popular star in a small movie and before you know it you’re making sure you’re keeping the star happy, without him even asking for it. This is where the rot set in with these arty filmmakers. Study any of their graphs and you’ll see the same story.

Did you ever worry that you would fall into the same trap, being a superstar of the “parallel star system” that was developing at the time?

No, because we weren’t getting anything like the rewards that those guys got! So we didn’t feel like stars, I was getting no money for any of these movies, it would amuse me no end that I was being called the Amitabh Bachchan of parallel cinema (laughs).

But yes, parallel cinema definitely had a star hierarchy of its own, and the same people would get cast over and over again. Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, Om Puri and Smita Patil, Farooque Shaikh and Supriya Pathak. The last film in which Shyam Benegal cast a whole ensemble of newcomers was Nishant in 1975!

When I started getting deluged with awards, I became the darling of these filmmakers. And because I had a kind of malleable personality – and I had worked on it – I got cast as the Christian, the Gujarati, the goonda, everything. I believed in myself as all those people. But the bitter truth also is that I was the only idiot available who would work free and deliver the goods, which was a major reason for my getting these roles. There were many others who were just as capable as I was, but they wouldn’t have been available on the same terms.

Your willingness to be openly critical of people in the industry – to name names - is something that’s rare in Bollywood, where tact is the ultimate virtue. Has the bluntness alienated you from a lot of people or otherwise had repercussions on your professional life?

I’ve been very lucky never to be in a position where I’ve had to worry about pleasing people or saying the right things to them. Yes, I have lost friends and that’s something I’ve regretted at times. But as far as needing to say the right things or the diplomatic things, that’s never been an issue. After all, I made it on my own steam – even the people who gave me my early breaks did it because I had what they needed, I didn’t take any favours from them. So I don’t really feel like I owe them anything.

One thing that’s interesting: when I say these blunt things about Bollywood movies or synthetic actors or Institute directors, no one ever responds by saying “He’s wrong. That isn’t true.” Instead they respond by saying “Yeh sab kyun keh raha hai?” (“Why is he saying all this?”) It’s almost like there’s this understanding that once you’re part of the industry, you’re simply not supposed to say certain things – that you’re supposed to be tactful and look the other way.

Your rants about FTII directors are legion. Kundan Shah told me you were stomping around the Jaane bhi do Yaaro sets in a cold fury in 1982, yelling that Institute directors were all idiots.

I strongly believe that the direction course at the FTII should be scrapped. There should only be areas of specialisation, so students can acquire expertise in a particular branch of filmmaking. Too many of these Institute directors have their heads filled with nonsense about a film being “their film”. But only Charles bloody Chaplin had the right to make such a claim, and even he was dependent on so many other people. Look at someone like Satyajit Ray, who was a true all-rounder: even he never wrote “A film by Satyajit Ray” in the credits of his movies. The auteur theory is rubbish. In Indian cinema it all started with Benegal etc, but it’s a load of rubbish.

Some of these directors are so full of themselves that they have no sense of human behaviour: they treat actors as props, to be shifted around. They only come to actors for suggestions when they don’t have an idea in their heads – otherwise it’s always “No, it’s my film and this is the way I want this done.”

As it is, the way films are made in Bollywood, everything is completely centered around a star’s image rather than on the way a character would really behave. “Amitabh ji hain toh aisi kursi mein baithenge.” “Naseeruddin Shah ko anger wallah scene do.” “Paresh Rawal hai toh comedy wallah scene do.”

Which of the films you did are you reasonably happy with?

I was proud of Masoom, Sparsh, maybe Ardh Satya to an extent. A Wednesday, among the newer films. But in general I’ve lost the hope of seeing a truly great film being made in this country, at least in my lifetime. Time and time and time again, people fuck up the opportunities they have.

But isn’t the overall quality of today’s offbeat films better than their equivalents from the 70s and 80s?

Definitely, in every way. Scriptwise, craftwise, understanding-wise, and most importantly these are films about issues that directly affect these young writer-directors. Neeraj Pandey has suffered firsthand through what the common man in A Wednesday talks about. He’s a very down-to-earth person and I look forward to his future work. Rajat Kapoor’s first film Private Detective was a very bad combination of James Hadley Chase and Mani Kaul, and they go together like rum and whiskey (laughs). I was in that film, and no one has ever seen it. But the movies he’s making now, Bheja Fry or Mithya, they are about the things he’s concerned with, and there’s a basic honesty to them. Even a Farah Khan makes great movies, because they are based on her completely unabashed love for commercial movies and she makes no bones about them. Anurag Kashyap is the most exciting filmmaker in the country by a long stretch, and there are guys like Hirani and Dibakar Banerjee.

I think today’s filmmakers have better honed their craft. See the skill with which Nandita Das’s Firaaq was made. She was heartbroken when the film was sunk by the distributors. That was a real pity.

It’s too early to celebrate but there’s hope. And let’s not start talking about a New Movement and all that.

You made your own debut as a movie director with Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota. Any more plans in that direction?

No. That film didn’t work and it hurts me to think I made a film that was incompetent. Some people tell me they liked it, but frankly I think that was because they wanted to like it. I pay more heed to those who didn’t like it. It had a lot of flaws. I’d like to set that right in the future, but I don’t know if I have the ability. Film direction is a very difficult job.

What were you thinking when you did something like Krrish?

(Makes wry face, flicks fingers in “rokda” gesture) I hope I can continue to do one big commercial film every year so I can line my bank account. That would be the perfect existence.

TOWARDS A ‘POOR’ THEATRE

With your dastangoi stint and with the new productions by your group Motley, you’ve been getting back to a no-frills, minimalist form of theatre. What attraction does this hold for you?

First of all, just to clear a misconception – my first love isn’t theatre, it’s cinema. I first dreamt of becoming a film actor when I first started dreaming at 14. I wanted to be rich and famous, I wanted to be Gary Cooper, I didn’t want to be an arty-farty type of guy trudging up hills and through streams and so on... (laughter) I wanted to live in palaces and be recognised everywhere and wear dark glasses and white suits.

Nobody becomes an actor to serve Art. You become an actor because you want to be famous, you want to meet girls, you want people to react to you. It was just chance that I discovered theatre along the way and became hooked to it, developed a great love for it which stayed with me. Then I went to FTII and started working in both forms simultaneously.

I don’t think I’m a hugely committed theatre-person – I don’t do street theatre or political theatre, which I perhaps would do if I were a theatre person above all else. To me, theatre is a stimulating experience that has taught me a great deal. But I love movies with a passion I can’t explain, and it hurts me to see people wasting the opportunities they have to make good films. It also hurts to see the neglect of film prints. The original prints of Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and Bhavni Bhavai are in ruins, and these were government-made films; there’s no excuse at all. Alam Ara, such a historically significant movie - the first sound film made in India - no longer exists, it exists only in stills.

But to get back to your question about returning to minimalist theatre... the more I’ve done theatre, the more convinced I’ve become about the thesis of the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, who wrote the book Towards a Poor Theatre. His argument was that European theatre is travelling in the wrong direction – more and more, people are trying to create the illusion of cinema through magical set changes, thunderstorms, floods, earthquakes, the stage going crooked etc. And he said, this is ridiculous – no matter what you do, cinema will always be better at doing these things.

Ergo, has theatre lost its function? Is what theatre did being done better by cinema today? And the answer is no. So, what is the identity of theatre in that case?

Grotowski was cash-strapped, in this communist regime with limited resources, and he developed the concept of poor theatre – he said our poverty of resources should be our strength. He defined ideal theatre as one actor, one audience. When I speak, you listen; when you speak, I listen. We respond to each other. And I thought, fuck man, this makes complete sense to me.

He went further: he said if I want to show a storm on stage, I don’t want to show water falling on the actor. I depend on the actor’s imagination, an actor whose body is capable and whose imagination is alive. Put the actor in minimal clothing and he expresses everything with his body and his voice. This was the sort of theatre he wanted to do.

He would go as far as to choose his audience. Girish Karnad is the only person I know who’s actually seen a performance of Grotowski’s group, and he told me it was like being submerged in water – he could only gasp for breath when he came out.

Grotowski said there is no point trying to create the illusion of being elsewhere – all an audience member has to do is look upwards and he can see the lights above the actors. You have to try and transport their minds. I’ve begun to gravitate towards this type of theatre. Dispense with all the props – if your imagination is good enough you can make the audience see the teapot and the teacup in a scene where the actor is making tea.

That reminds me of Spencer Tracy playing a shipwrecked sailor on stage once and saying he didn’t want a stubble. The director asked him incredulously, “You mean you’re going to act unshaven?” And that’s pretty much what Tracy did.

Was that in Captains Courageous? No no, that was a film.

Back in the 70s, under Mr Elkazi, I felt theatre was all about the grandeur. But the magic of theatre really is the stimulation you give the watcher’s mind. For that you don’t need anything except the actor. If I were to do Shaw's Saint Joan, which I badly want to, I would do it in this minimalist way. That play is full of such beautiful words, and that’s all you really need.

As far as Motley is concerned, I’m trying to spend as little time as possible on stage – because otherwise the play will become about Naseeruddin Shah, and I want the theatre group to outlive me.

(Later, Naseer showed me an article he’d been reading about J D Salinger. “There was such purity of purpose in this man,” he said, “in the way he let his work do the talking and kept himself in the background. Not that I consider myself anywhere near the same league, but there are times when I’m preparing for a play and I want to continue with the rehearsals without ever putting on the actual performance.”)

Source: http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-with-naseeruddin-shah.html