World renowned stage and film actor & director Naseeruddin Shah released his memoir And Then One Day on Monday at an event organised by the Oxford University Press. The actor spoke at length on various events from his life which contributed to his book.
Narrating an incident from his teenage years, Shah spoke on how he ran away from home with the belief that “you only needed a ticket to Bombay to make it to Bollywood,” but was sent back by Dilip Kumar who believed that “boys from good families don’t become actors.”
The actor talked about the near-misses and close calls he had during his career and spoke of how his flight as an actor might have actually crash landed before even taking off had he not gone with his instinct and chosen a low-budget film over an expensive big-budget movie.
“I was offered a part in a very expensive movie while I was working on ‘Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai’. I went with my instincts and chose the latter over the big-budget extravanganza,” stated Shah.
To date Shah thanks his lucky stars as the film proved to be a box office failure whereas ‘Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai’ is still appreciated by audiences. But what was worse according to him was how the failure of the movie resulted in the loss of some established and fledgling careers, one of which could have been his.
The grief though of not becoming a huge star did not stay with the actor for long as he “loved what he got” in return.
Having been referred to as a “character actor” throughout his career he used the opportunity to define the term saying that it was another sugar-coated word used to refer to a ‘side hero’.
Known for his honesty and speaking his mind Shah commented on the importance of such roles saying, “Unfortunately actors today and then are lacking in talent therefore they needed strong character actors by their side.”
Despite this he lamented the fact that actors “who were giants of the theatre world” would be remembered for the “lousy roles” they did as character actors on the silver screen.
Regarded as an established figure of Indian cinema Shah has been unimpressed by the work being done in Bollywood for a while. “People say Hollywood also makes commercial films like Iron Man and Superman but then they also make quality films like King’s Speech, The Imitation Game and Theory of Everything.
Whereas when we make serious films they are such boring dramas that the only thing a person is guaranteed to get is a headache,” remarked the actor-cum-director.
“How we can make great movies if all we are aspiring to is to make the rubbish of Hollywood,” he added.
Naseeruddin Shah, who himself is a graduate of the National School of Drama, said that acting schools nowadays had become a money making business. Likening the responsibility of training an actor to “handling a soul” he noted how, “Most people do not realise the amount of labour an actor needs to put in,” and how people are making a mockery of the craft with ludicrous schemes such as week-long acting courses.
No conversation with the actor is ever complete without talk of his most iconic role of Mirza Ghalib in the classic television series of the same name.
He recalled how he had written a letter to the writer of the series Gulzar, while in drama school, telling him how he had made a mistake by casting Sanjeev Kumar in the part.
As luck would have it the letter would not reach Gulzar and due to budget constraints Naseeruddin Shah was cast instead.
Shah said his favourite films include Masoom and Sparsh mainly because they had not been written in the typical Indian film “syrupy style.”
