Father-son actor duo Shekhar Suman and Adhyayan Suman addressed rumours of filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali being a tough taskmaster with a short temper. Adhyayan said that because he’d heard these stories, he was terrified before his first day at work on the Netflix series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. He plays a supporting role in the period drama, which also features Shekhar.
In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, they were asked about these stories, and Shekhar for one defended Bhansali’s right to express himself however he wants to. “How does it matter (if he’s short tempered)?” Shekhar asked. “He has every right to be. Why does he get angry? He’s not a madman, but he is a perfectionist. You will always notice that perfectionists are short tempered, because they get impatient with everybody else for not being at their level. I know of so many people who are legends in their craft, but are also short tempered. K Asif was like this, Mehboob Khan was like this, Raj Kapoor was like this.”
Also read – Salman Khan reveals Sanjay Leela Bhansali ‘yells, throws things’ on set, advises him to spend time with Sooraj Barjatya to learn patience
He continued, “It doesn’t matter what they say about Bhansali. He’s every right to be angry. In fact, I would want him to be even angrier, considering what we’re getting in return. Look at what he’s creating, not only for us, but for posterity.” Adhyayan also disagreed with this notion about Bhansali. He said, “He loves his actors, they’re like his children. You cannot imagine how differently he sometimes interprets scenes. By the time you’ve prepared for the scene and come on set, he’s changed the entire scene. There can’t be a better film school. If you’ve survived Bhansali, you can handle anything.”
Adhyayan was so scared of messing up, he locked himself in the bathroom the night before his first day. Shekhar had to give him a pep-talk, and together, they ensured that he was fully prepared for the next day. Bhansali astutely noticed that Adhyayan’s Urdu pronunciation was impeccable, and remarked, “Your dad taught you, didn’t he?”
Read more – Heeramandi: It took 700 craftsmen, 7 months to create Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘biggest set ever’, spanning three acres
Bhansali’s reputation has been well-documented. Ranbir Kapoor, who worked with the director in Saawariya and prior to that assisted him on the film Black, had revealed how he was beaten up and abused at by the filmmaker, to a point that he had to quit the project. In a 2016 podcast with Neha Dhupia, Ranbir had said, “He (Bhansali) was a hard task-master and I was kneeling down on set, he was beating me… after a point it got so heavy and I felt so tortured that I had to quit the film at a point… I think it was like 10 or 11 months into my job and I am like, ‘Listen I can’t do this, it’s getting to me.’ I think I am too sensitive and emotional and he got to know me so well and he kind of kept poking into that… He got too much, went crazy as far as I was concerned.” Ranbir will reunite with Bhansali on the upcoming film Love and War.
In an interview with Filmfare, Ranveer Singh played the devil’s advocate, and said, “He’s the director, he’s not only feeling what you’re feeling, but he’s also dealing with a dozen other things. He does have a temper. But from what I hear it’s not as bad as it used to be. That’s because he’s so passionate about his craft. His endeavour is to achieve magic every day. Frankly, he’s never been angry with me. We gel well with each other. The kind of reactions that come naturally to me is the type of performance he wants in Ram Leela.”
His wife Deepika Padukone, who’s worked with Bhansali on three films, once said during the trailer launch for Padmaavat, “With Sanjay Leela Bhansali, you don’t count the number of takes, you just go with the flow. You have to switch off from things like your heavy headgear, costume or how uncomfortable the dupatta is on your head. When the camera is on, it is all about what I am doing and the energy. After the shoot, you realise (there are) injuries.”
Bhansali himself addressed these rumours last year, at a Heeramandi event in Mumbai. He said, “There’s nothing like that. I’m not a task master, it’s the image the media has built upon me that I’m difficult to work with and that I’m temperamental. We just sit over there and find a moment which emerges out of discussion and conversation which means that I use their mind and they use my mind, we all get together and that moment of magic comes to us, which I then take credit for and say that I created the magic.” Heeramandi will be released on May 1.
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