'Now, I don't take myself seriously'

Piali Banerjee / TNN / Mar 22, 2006, 21:28 IST

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Says Naseer as his sons take Sunil Shetty's movies more seriously than his.

Says Naseer as his sons take Sunil Shetty's movies more seriously than his.
NAgesh Kukunoor wants Naseeruddin Shah to do a walk-on part in his new film. Naseer is not affronted. "I'll do it, of course," he says. "It's a pleasure to hang around Nagesh's sets. That's the best reason to do a film, that I can find today."
There's another, second best reason to do a film too. To help other actors shed their image. "I am excited by Saif's role in Being Cyrus.
It has always been a secret desire to be part of projects where popular actors can shed their baggage, perhaps even help them out in the process.

And Saif gets to shed his baggage in this film, where he plays an out-and-out b#**#*d. That was the reason I did Sarfarosh too.
I thought Aamir Khan would shed his baggage in the film. Unfortunately, my plan failed there, Aamir couldn't really shed his image."
So, what's with the new Naseer, who now only wants to do films for off-beat reasons? "When you approach work this way you have fewer regrets," he says. "Finally, an actor's role is very finite in a film.
You're dependent on a million other inputs, and yet you are the only visible flaw in a film when things go wrong. I know that most actors are lazy, but I've seen industrious actors too being destroyed by this whole process of filmmaking."
Evidently, his directorial venture, Yun Hota To Kya Hota, has many of his friends walking in and out, in various small roles. Did a lot of big stars refuse to work in Naseeruddin Shah's directorial debut?
"Well, they politely told me that they would love to work with me and then asked for a crore which is half my film's budget!" he says with a guffaw.
"Big stars wallowing in their own success can't see themselves as ordinary beings. They take their images, and themselves, ever so seriously," aseer says.
There has been past evidence to show that Naseer takes himself very seriously too. "I must admit that I did that at one time, now I don't," he says. "I stopped taking myself seriously ever since my sons started watching films.
In fact, they never took me seriously, they always preferred Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty to me. That's when I started looking at my work through their eyes. And I must say that post that analysis, I found myself quite amusing."
lucknow.times@timesgroup.com

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