Legendary actor Naseeruddin Shah says that the actor choices reflect their political as well as their social beliefs. However, he believes that this will also establish the person’s individuality. He says that if he agrees with the vision of the director only then he will say yes to the movie and from there, an actor’s individuality comes from their choices.
Naseeruddin says that the kind of films an actor choose reflects their political as well as their social expressions. The job of an actor in the movies is that of a messenger of writers and the directors. He says that his definition of acting might make many actors uncomfortable but he believes that this is a fact. An actor’s role is to be followed and execute the vision of the writer and especially for the director who has created the character in the movie.
He says that he himself is a messenger of the director’s vision and he is not here to create his own individuality. Moreover, he says that now the cinema has changed but his approach has not changed and the main reason behind that is he has always attempted to tune in with their idea. However, his signatures can come from his means of expression but even those expressions are of the director.
He is in the film industry for almost for over three decades now. He is one of the most prominent faces of India’s parallel cinema. He has always been a part of the commercial movies more and the most interesting thing is that the widely awarded actor has not put himself into the spotlight of a movie. When asked from the actor that what makes him not get seduced by the attention, unlike other actors. On this, he says that in today’s time actors just love themselves and but that does not mean that he does not love himself but now over a period of time he has finally realized that there are a lot of qualities that are required to be an actor and he believes that narcissism is also one of them.
At the 19th Jio MAMI Award, his movie ‘The Hungry’ was also got screened and in that movie, he played the dark character. The movie was directed by Bornila Chatterjee. Naseeruddin says that to portray any character he does not look outward for the inspiration he always tries to find the character with himself. Firstly, he always tries to understand the character that how he would react if he would be in a certain situation. If he would be able to the role by himself than he agrees to do that role and moreover, he feels that it is an internal process. He does not like taking a reference to someone he has always seen next to him.
Naseeruddin’s contribution in the Hindi cinema has been recognized with a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan Award. In the year 1980, he made his acting debut with a Hindi movie titled ‘Hum Paanch’ and he went on to act in the movies like ‘Karma’, ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’, ‘Masoom’, ‘Hey Ram’, Monsoon Wedding’, ‘Sardarosh’, ‘Maqbool’, ‘A Wednesday’ and ‘The Dirty Picture’. In his long career, he has even worked with some of the iconic directors like Shyam Bengal, Sai Paranjpye, Govind Nihalani and also along with the most commercial filmmakers like Anees Bazmee, Zoya Akhtar, and Vishal Bhardwaj.
When asked from the actor that what is his way to stay relevant along with the time? He says that he always keep on trying to inculcate his own thoughts and ideas of acting in the youngsters and he feels that the acting is a means of expression and it is a tool of communication. He feels that is very sad that many of the actors are conditioned that they are in the center and their performance is everything for the movie and that he feels that thinking this is not right. The makers of the movie cannot take criticism and failure because it is the most visible component of the movie and they face the criticism first.
He believes that actors should take reviews seriously however for him reviews are as good as the opinion of a taxi driver. He feels that the reviews are just another piece of opinion on their movie and there are nothing more than that. Most of the persons who do reviews they do not analyze every aspect of the movie but they write about the plot in their review. Then the remaining half they will condemn the movie for what it is not. He meant that what is the use of finding a social relevance in the movies which was directed by David Dhawan if he himself never claimed to have one or even if calling Mani Kaul’s movie too heavy just because for not having a song and dance in that movie.