Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who is known for extracting memorable performances out of his actors and being a tough taskmaster on set, recently said that actors often live in the delusion that they are solely responsible for a good performance. Bhansali, who recently released his first streaming series, Heeramandi, on Netflix, said that while some of his actors believe that they are “given the freedom” to do a scene in a way they want, it is actually just the “illusion of freedom” that’s given to them.
In a chat with Galatta Plus, Bhansali said that the “problem in Indian cinema” is that the actors tend to “hijack” appreciation, and don’t credit the technicians who actually add value to their performance. “A performance does not belong to an actor. A good performance belongs to a director, dialogue writer, cinematographer, art director, costume designer, choreographer, editor, the guy who has painted the wall behind you. You are saying ‘my performance’, but you are never saying that these people are responsible for my performance. Everything is suddenly hijacked by the actor, which is where the problem in Indian cinema is,” he said.
Bhansali added that an actor “has to realise that I am not the star.” He added, “The star is… everybody collectively comes and makes me a star. Will you please acknowledge and say I did this performance and I had a great dialogue writer, art director, costume guy, make up person. You will rarely find an actor giving credit to other people for their performance.”
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Bhansali mentioned that he “loves” his actors as they bring his characters to life. “I love my actor to death. He/she has to be nurtured, he has to be given all the perks to be able to now go through the grind so I understand that he is also going through the grind,” he said. He also clarified that when his actors say that they were “given the freedom” to perform the way they want, it is actually just the “illusion” of freedom. He also added, that for him, the give and take between an actor and director is most essential.
“There is a very strange way of me reaching out to them. So, sometimes my actors go to the extent of saying that ‘we were given the freedom and we did this’. No, there is no freedom. There is an illusion of freedom given to you, you are told what to do, sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously,” he said, and added, “Sometimes, the actors should have the freedom to able to express themselves in a certain way but that doesn’t mean that I did this performance, it belongs to me,” he said.
Bhansali will now be working on his next film, Love and War, starring Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor and Vicky Kaushal.
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