I don't believe an actor can become a character: Naseeruddin Shah

The walk from the elevator to the door was probably the longest I have undertaken in recent years and I almost have my heart in my mouth The last time I felt something close to this was when the teacher had handed me the Math question paper during my Board Exams The doorbell is staring at me I gulp take a deep breath and press it Moments later I am in a drawing room stacked with books and DVDs Sitting next to a dark and rather snobbish cat is the man himselfPicSameer MarkandeNaseeruddin Shah needs no introduction Having grown up watching his films and having religiously attended most of his plays I am in awe of this man and at the moment also tonguetied Not a good sign especially if you are in the interviewerrsquos chair something I am yet to warm up to My face must have betrayed my emotions for Mr Shah gives me a wide smile ldquoLetrsquos do thisrdquoI cross my fingers and toesA scene from Motleys new production Gadhha aur GaddHa which will be staged on May 30 and 31 at Prithvi Theatre as part of SummertimePrithviChilds playHis upcoming play Gadhha aur GaddHa is based on Krishen Chanderrsquos satirical writings Although known for his no frills productions that usually consist of no more than three characters this play has an eightmember cast ldquoWe usually donrsquot have a big cast but this one required it Luckily we had a few talented actors around many of whom are my studentsrdquo says ShahThis is the first time he is attempting an outandout childrenrsquos play although previously he had staged George Bernard Shawrsquos Arms and the Man for children ldquoalthough no children came for the playrdquo he complains But that is not really a childrenrsquos playI point out rather sheepishly ldquoYes it is a satire on war I saw it first when I was a fiveyearold Geoffrey Kendalrsquos Shakespeareana used to come to our school every year and they used to stage the play quite often I didnrsquot understand anything but it always stayed with me Even if 1520 children come to watch our play and remember it I am happyrdquo he saysMr Kendal and his theatre company had an immense impact on Shah in his growing up years mdash so much so that Shah often calls himself his Eklavya And now his own theatre company Motley which he built with Benjamin Gilani in 1979 is trying to do the same ldquoWe stage plays in schools in Delhi Dehradun Patiala but in Mumbai nobody calls us I guess the school curriculum is too busy to incorporate theatrerdquo he ruesAccording to him what makes children better audience is that they donrsquot come with preconceived notions ldquoEven doing a play like Samuel Beckettrsquos Waiting for Godot for children is quite fantastic They donrsquot look for deeper meanings and just enjoy the play We should not be condescending towards them They are smarter than we think they arerdquo says ShahShakespeare not for dummiesShah has a penchant for adapting literary works of famous authors and has worked extensively on the texts of Shaw Beckett and more recently Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto But unlike his guru Mr Kendal he has so far not shown any particular love for The Bard although he has grown up watching Shakespearersquos plays ldquoIt is very difficult to do Shakespeare because you donrsquot get actors who can speak the way Shakespeare should be spoken In fact I would like to teach Shakespeare in schools But the problem is that if I approach a school here they will be suspicious about my motiverdquo he saysWhat about a Hindi adaptation then And this elicits laughter ldquoShakespeare has been borrowed by Hindi filmmakers ad nauseam It all started with the Parsi theatre of Agha Hashar Kashmiri who made plays like Khoon ka Khoon based on Hamlet Teen Betiyaan based on King Lear and so on Parsi Theatre gave way to Hindi cinema where people sang for no reason and where all the emotions were underlined and spelt out and at the end everything was resolved rather easily All this is Shakespeare There is nothing great in the stories of Shakespeare the real magic of his work lies in the language And to translate that you need another Shakespeare which is a bit difficult to findrdquo he smilesSuccess is a bonusHis previous play Einstein was a huge hit running up to 22 shows out of which eight were at NCPArsquos Tata Theatre and each was houseful ldquoI do plays I feel like doing I do the kind of theatre I do because it gives me immense pleasure It doesnrsquot matter to me if people turn up for the play or not We are lucky that lots of people come to see our plays I didnrsquot expect Einstein to do so well The fact that the play was so successful is a bonus Another bonus is that I got to know a bit about Einstein as a person And that is one thing that makes theatre so dear to me Here each day I learn new things read up books I wouldnrsquot have otherwise Theatre has given me the confidence to deal with life I can never give up theatre If someday for health issues I canrsquot continue I will feel a big vacuum It means too much to merdquoSilver liningAlthough Shah agrees that today watching a play has become more of a status symbol and in many cases the most expensive seats even in a houseful show go empty as the people are more interested in showing off the tickets than watch the play he says such people are merely five per cent of the total number of the audienceHe is not too unhappy with the current state of affairs and says ldquoIt is very encouraging to see a lot of young faces in the audience There is good amount of talent that is coming in the form of actors and directors as wellrdquoShah is optimistic about the future of the film industry as well and according to him the actors today are a confident lot ldquoActors such as Nawazzuddin Siddiqui Irrfan Khan Arshad Warsi Manoj Bajpai Kay Kay Menon are just wonderful They are more aware than any of us were at their age All of them had had a long struggle and hence have not lost touch with the real world and thatrsquos the best thing I donrsquot care much for the popular stars but these are the actors whose future I am watching with great interestrdquo he says But he bemoans the fact that most of these actors have left theatre for movies and feels it is as much a loss to the stage as it is to themDo not become the characterAlthough he is armed with not one but two acting degrees mdash one from National School of Drama NSD and the other from the Film and Television Institute of India FTII he believes acting cannot be taught ldquoYou have to train yourself Even if you enroll in an acting school they can just show you the way You have to walk the walkIn my batch at the film institute there were 22 students Among them only two survived mdash Shakti Kapoor and I The other 20 have disappeared He trained himself for what he needed to do and I for what I needed to dordquo says ShahHe is not a big fan of the popular concepts of Method Acting either and says ldquoI donrsquot believe that an actor can become a character If you become the character you are of no use In fact it will be dangerous if the actors start becoming the character Imagine Robert De Niro becoming Travis Bickle during the shooting of Taxi Driver He would have shot everyone on the setsrdquo Shah breaks into a hearty laughThen on a rather serious note adds ldquoYou cannot and should not become the character Know the character well But by that I donrsquot mean you need to psychoanalyse him The script gives you enough material and all you have to do is read it carefullyrdquoHe reveals that when he did Mirza Ghalib a television series written and directed by Gulzar all he did was to follow the script and listen to whatever the director had to say about the character ldquoMy job was to embody Gulzarbhairsquos visionrdquo he says pointing out that not only is an actor as good as the script he can never be better than the directorFollow your heartChoosing a script must be crucial How does he go about with it The question is greeted with a bout of laughter ldquoNot at all And that is why sometimes you make mistakes I pick up the scripts I feel like That is how I did a film like Jackpot Kaizad Gustadrsquos 2013 film starring Shah and Sunny Leone I donrsquot blame Kaizad I just felt like doing it Itrsquos a different thing that I havenrsquot watched it and I donrsquot even want tordquo he guffawsAnd how does he feel when he now sees himself dancing to a song like Tirchi Topiwale we wonder The reference to the Tridev 1989 song still makes the man a tad uncomfortable ldquoI tried to enjoy those movies In fact I tried too hard I canrsquot take myself seriously as a Hindi film hero Although I have played those roles I donrsquot think I was any good But I can satirise such characters and thatrsquos why I thoroughly enjoyed doing Dirty Picturerdquo says Shah with an honesty seldom found inthe industryThe kids are all rightHis is one unique family where all the members are involved with theatre in some way or the other While he has been collaborating with his wife Ratna Pathak Shah a brilliant actor herself recently his children Heba Imaad and Vivaan have also joined him on stage making him a proud dadldquoIt is great working with them They know exactly what I wantrdquo says Shah adding that unlike him they also have other interests and have not taken up theatre fulltime ldquoHeba is in Bengaluru for a oneyear course in dance Imaad is more into music He had done one song in Dibakar Banerjeersquos Detective Byomkesh Bakshy Calcutta Kiss and has composed the music for Gadhha aur GaddHa He is also coming up with an album Vivaan is more into writing these days He is rather disappointed with Bombay Velvet but he is living with that He is preparing something on his own It will be a storytelling based on a piece he has writtenrdquo However Shah insists there are more topics to discuss at the dinner table than theatre which has a palpable presence in the houseAs we wrap up news arrives that Imaadrsquos offbeat movie M Cream which was one of the entries in the St Tropez International Film Festival has got him the best actorrsquos award Well we are hardly surprised Blame it on his genes