‘I have faced prejudices all my life’

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the ebony-complexioned superstar of Bollywood whom every producer wants to sign at any cost. He is barely out of one highly lauded role in Mom when he is already looking at another crowd-pleasing role as a hoodlum dancer in Munna Michael!

Many consider Nawazuddin to be one of the finest, if not the finest, actor of Hindi cinema today. Therefore when he speaks the world listens. Last week after casting director Sanjay Chouhan spoke about how co-actors cast with Nawazuddin have to be dark-skinned, the actor raised the question of racism through a tweet that said: “Thank you for making me realise that I cannot be paired along with the fair and handsome because I’m dark and not good looking.” A lot has been said and written about his words.

Finally he clarified the whole issue in an interview which threatened to go into tricky tangents on societal prejudice. “I was reacting to what I read about this gentleman’s statement on the kind of actors I need to be cast with. I found the statement very strange. Did filmmakers actually consider the colour of my co-stars’ skin before casting them with me? Yeh ladki gori hai yeh nahin chalegi...yeh ladka saawla hai issko banao Nawaz ka dost...is that how actors are cast in our films? I thought actors were chosen for suitability and merit....Anyway, this gentleman says he was misquoted,” he said.

Nawazuddin added that he hated playing the victim card. “But the fact is that I have faced prejudices all my life because of my dark complexion, because of my humble background and because I come from a small village.” —IANS