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I am no hero: Naseeruddin Shah
Published on Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 22:30, Updated on Sat, Aug 05, 2006 at 07:56 in Entertainment section
Tags: Bollywood, Naseeruddin Shah , Mumbai
Mumbai: As Naseeruddin Shah gets set to release his directorial debut Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota, the actor-director says he is ready to face his critics. Here are excerpts of an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN's Entertainment Editor, Rajeev Masand.
He is undeniably one of the country’s finest living actors. However, he is switching gears now. He is the man who makes movies look like so much fun - Naseeruddin Shah.
Naseeruddin Shah: Thank you, thank you Rajeev.
Rajeev Masand: Naseer Bhai, at a time when the average age of a debutant director in the industry is coming down to 20s somewhere, you are making your debut in your 50s.
Naseeruddin Shah: I was too nervous to attempt direction earlier. I am not quite as confident as I sometimes appear, I had great doubts as to whether I was upto the task of directing a movie. I had no illusions about the fact that it is one hell of a difficult job. And I really wanted to be certain that I know what I am doing. Hopefully after you see the movie, you won’t say Naseeruddin doesn’t know what he is doing.
Rajeev Masand: Now Yun Hota To Kya Hota, the film you just directed, correct me if I am wrong, is a film about four couples, about their lives. It's a piece about people and their relationships, about how their lives are intertwined and Mumbai and New York are the backdrop. Did you ever feel a sort of pressure on you to make a serious film, just because you yourself perceived as this man with gravitas.
Naseeruddin Shah: No never. I was determined not to make such a film in fact, because that’s the kind of film everybody expects me to do. And everybody is expressing great surprise that Shabana Azmi is not in the film and that I myself am not in the film! And I say no. It is not a Shabana Azmi-Nasiruddin Shah kind of film at all. It is a kind of film that I would like to see. It has four disparate love stories. All four end tragically and they are love stories of four different age groups of people. There is a young teenage couple, there are newlyweds, there is a middling 35ish guy who is in love with an old woman and there is a middle aged couple. Middle-age romances always fascinated me. In fact I had liked to make romance about an aged couple someday. May be that’s my idea for my next film.
Rajeev Masand: You have always been very vocal about the movies that are being made and about the state of Indian cinema. Are you sort of concerned that now it’s their turn to go?
Naseeruddin Shah: If I deserved to get flaked, I will take it. I know that. I know that what I have made is not rubbish, it’s not mindless and nor it is boring. I know that for sure. If people react and tell me these things, I will be very very surprised and it will make me re-examine everything that I have believed in about what a film should be like. I am prepared for criticism of any kind and I know a lot of it is going to fly fast and furious because people are unsheathing their claws. It’s ok, I can take it. I would in fact be very interested and am very keen to know what people think of my movie. I am getting to a stage where I am getting very impatient for people to see it.
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