Naseeruddin Shah at KLF, Kozhikode | Photo credit: K. Ragesh
Few actors convey the emotions of a character the way Naseeruddin Shah does with every subtlety, every nuance. The way he uses a low voice.
When he speaks, on a pleasant Thursday evening (January 23) on the Kozhikode beach, he reminds you of all the characters he played, unforgettable – DK Malhotra (Innocent), gullible (churn), Sarfaraz Khan (passion), Salim (market), Mahendra (permission), A Wednesday! (Common man) …
Most of those films came during the peak of mid-cinema in Bollywood, back in the 1970s and 80s. He was a superstar of the very seminal cinema which was pioneered and perfected by Shyam Benegal, who passed away recently.
“As an actor, I want to give her everything,” Shah tells Hindu in an interview. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what direction my life would have taken. They put me in films at a time when no one else touched me. Also, like in ground-breaking movies churn,role, And Passion,
He says that he loved her very much. “He was always very fond of me,” says Mr. Shah, who is in the city to speak at the Kerala Literature Festival. “One sees such enthusiasm at film festivals which I don’t usually attend because there are so many people. This is not surprising because there is such a love of reading in this state. I envy the people in Kerala because they live in such beautiful surroundings, and they are all educated and very theatre-literate. ,
Shah has acted in one Malayalam film – Ponthan MadaDirected by TV Chandran. “I remember struggling with my Malayalam dialogues,” he says. “I’d sit up all night and learn the dialogue and the next morning I’d go to the set and tell the director, ‘Sir, just listen to my lines’, and before I’d hardly said a word, he’d say ‘No’. So I had Was a tough job.”
Mr. Shah says that he enjoyed working with Mammootty in that film. “He’s a great actor, and he’s a great star, but he doesn’t take his stardom too heavy,” says Shah. “Malayalam is lucky that Mammootty and Mohanlal have used their stardom to act in good films. And, because of the presence of one of these gentlemen, for the last 30 years, they have been willing to work with newcomers in parallel cinema, with smaller budgets. It is very rare anywhere in India for stars of that magnitude to do these things. I wish some of our Hindi stars had a lot of sense not only to promote themselves but also to participate in films that deserve to be seen. ,
Mr Shah is influenced by some of the young crop of Bollywood actors, like Rajkummar Rao and Nawazuddin Siddiqui and the late Irrfan Khan. “These actors are much better than us at that age,” he says. “I really admire him, and I envy him because he’s getting amazing movies and roles. I don’t watch much Bollywood movies, but I enjoy watching a Rajkumar Hirani movie once in a while, Who I think is a very good director, I like his films.
published – January 24, 2025 08:24 PM IST
