An actor on demand
Shoma A. Chatterji
Do you remember the actor who played Satish Godbole, the conceited, patronising husband of Shashi Godbole played by Sridevi in English-Vinglish? Or the diabolic character in Ishqiyan? He is tall, dark and handsome and has a very good screen personality to boot. But just let us get a bit closer in a one-to-one chat with him and ask him straight. As it turned out, this National School of Drama graduate is very articulate and does not wear that starry halo around his head.
You come from Goalpara in Assam. Then however did you land at the other end of the Indian map, Bollywood and that too, in Hindi films?
When I was still in school, someone handed me a brochure of the National School of Drama. The dream of making it as an actor, perhaps, became a strong urge from then. I was already into school plays and had won awards. But taking it up seriously needed training and groundwork. A question that poked me constantly was how and why do I like one actor’s performance better than the other’s if there were two performing actors on stage? I did not complete my graduation and managed to get into the last batch where NSD allowed non-graduates to join. Life was never the same again.
You have done quite a few Bollywood films by now. Which are the ones that you still carry along with you as your school of experience?
Each filmmaker comes with his own baggage of training and directing. As an actor, you must learn from all of them from the way they function, direct, give or do not give you space to improvise and so on. So I have learnt different things from all of them.
Which plays from your NSD days would you like to mention as your memorable ones?
The plays that shaped me into an actor are — Uttar Ramcharitram based on Bhavabhuti’ original Sanskrit play, Dr. Faust, Three Pney Opera, Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard.
Was the Charles Wallace six-month fellowship you won from the British Council to study in London help you in your acting?
No because I constantly felt I had learnt much more at the NSD in Delhi than in my London training. NSD training was more comprehensive and inclusive but the Drama School in London was preparing us for the “market” and failed to answer more in-depth and critical questions about acting per se that includes everything including production skills and infrastructural training.
You have done theatre, television and cinema. Is there a scale of preference among these three for you as an actor?
I personally find cinema quite scary because whatever you do in the final take is frozen forever and you cannot do it all over again. The other reason is that a story for cinema is not shot consequentially from beginning to end and this is done only when the film is being edited. So, an actor has to pick up the finer nuances of a given scene at that point of time and deliver perfectly. Television is sequential but otherwise there is not much difference between television and cinema. But the stage is fluid, flexible and can be improved upon by an actor from one performance to the next and that is a happy thing for any actor. Cinema is something produced by an entire team and you are just a tiny speck in that large ocean. So your contribution does not enrich you as much as you would like to believe.
