{"id":375434,"date":"2025-11-13T07:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T07:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/375434\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T07:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T07:28:14","slug":"if-you-try-to-be-smart-hed-catch-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/375434\/","title":{"rendered":"‘If you try to be smart, he’d catch you’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actor Vijay Varma,<\/a><\/strong>who acted alongside Naseeruddin Shah in Manish Malhotra\u2019s Gustaakh Ishq, revealed how it was always his dream to learn from the veteran actor. \u201cI\u2019ve been hero-worshipping him ever since I was a 20-year-old. I always wanted to work with him. I always wanted to learn under him. He had come at the film school I was studying, but before and after I was there,\u201d said Varma.<\/p>\n

Naseeruddin Shah<\/a> was a guest faculty at the Film & Television Institute of India, from where actors like Varma has graduated. \u201cI\u2019d heard stories of how important his classes. So once I moved to Mumbai<\/a> and found out that he\u2019s doing a class in Pune<\/a>, a friend and I enrolled ourselves. He refused to take us in, but we stood outside because he thought since we were seniors, the students would be distracted,\u201d said Varma.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He then recalled how they waited the entire day outside the class before Naseeruddin Shah saw them and asked them to come to the class the next day. \u201cGetting an opportunity to work with Naseeruddin Shah for two months in the winters made my life successful,\u201d said Varma, adding, \u201cHe was meticulous. He\u2019d catch you. If you try to be smart about it, boss you\u2019re gone! He\u2019s got a very sharp eye!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Shabana Azmi recalled that she and Naseeruddin Shah may not have shared screen space for 18 years now, since Rohit Roy\u2019s segment Rice Plate in the 2007 anthology Dus Kahaniyaan. But at one point in the 1970s and 1980s, they were spending more time with each other than their respective partners \u2014 Ratna Pathak Shah and Javed Akhtar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a time when we were doing 10 films together. I used to spend more time with him than I did with Javed, and Ratna used to spend less time with him than I did. Really, it was like that,\u201d said Shabana. She also confirmed that they\u2019ll be reuniting after almost two decades for Shekhar Kapur\u2019s Masoom: A New Generation, the sequel to his 1983 cult classic family drama Masoom.<\/p>\n

Shabana and Naseeruddin Shah<\/a> <\/strong>were the frontrunners of the parallel cinema movement in the 1970s, spearheaded by filmmakers like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani. They starred together in memorable films like Benegal\u2019s Nishant (1975) and Mandi (1983), Sai Paranjpye\u2019s Sparsh (1980), Saeed Akhtar Mirza\u2019s Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai (1980), Mrinal Sen\u2019s Khandahar (1984) and Genesis (1986), Gautam Ghose\u2019s Paar (1984), Vidhu Vinod Chopra\u2019s Khamosh (1986), Vijaya Mehta\u2019s Pestonjee (1988), and Gulzar\u2019s Libaas (1988).<\/p>\n

Also read: Naseeruddin Shah responds as Farhan Akhtar calls him out for \u2018distasteful remarks\u2019 in media<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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In a roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Azmi lauded costume designer-turned-producer Manish Malhotra for the rare compliment Naseeruddin Shah gave to him after working in his maiden production, Viju Shah\u2019s romantic drama Gustaakh Ishq, slated to release in cinemas on November 21. Malhotra revealed that Naseeruddin Shah messaged him to tell him he\u2019s the one of the best producers he\u2019s ever worked with. \u201cI have not heard that sentence for anyone in the 50 years he\u2019s worked with. He\u2019s (Naseeruddin) very soft and lovely,\u201d said Shabana.<\/p>\n

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