Actor Jason Shah, who recently played the villainous Cartwright in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut streaming series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, opened up about the ‘stressful’ environment on set and said that he would’ve liked more time to prepare for the role, and more free-flowing communication between himself and his fellow collaborators on the show. In an interview, Jason said that he took it all on the chin, even though he was often the last actor to perform close-ups on a given day, and that assistants would frequently fail to communicate what was required of him.
Chatting with Bollywood Now, Jason said that he would work for three days, and then be off for weeks on end. This didn’t help his performance, and the situation only worsened because of lack of clarity in vision. “I thought at first that (Cartwright) was a very straight-line kind of character, he’s coming in and whacking everyone, because that’s all that I’m reading. I didn’t read the entire screenplay, which, maybe if I’d got the chance to do that, I’d have seen Cartwright in a different light,” he said.
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Jason said that it would only have helped his process had he had more time with the directors. “It wasn’t a continuous shoot. It was quite broken up. I would work for three days and not be on set for three weeks, and then come back again. In my mind, I was jostled. I wasn’t settling in. And what happens is that over an extended period of time working with a team, the different nuances of that day start to affect your character.”
Jason said that there were times when he would show up on set but not have any idea what to do. “They would know what the scene was, but I wouldn’t even know who the actresses were. At one stage, I thought one of the actresses — I won’t give her name — I thought she was an AD. And then she came dressed up, ready for the scene. But no one introduced me. So, I don’t know who’s on set!”
Read more – ‘Sharmin Segal’s Heeramandi performance was one-tone’: Co-star Jason Shah recalls Sanjay Leela Bhansali asking her to ‘act from heart’ on set
The actor emphasised that ‘preparation was a little bit less’ on the show, but said that he doesn’t mind it. He also noted that he’d be the last one to be called up for his close-ups, after the others had filmed theirs. “There were a lot of days when I’d be shooting at the end. We would do a lot of closes, and most of the time, I would be the last one for my closes. It’s not that I’m trying to be the victim here, but I was told things like, ‘Jason, you have 45 minutes’. So, I’ve done some massive scenes in a very short amount of time.”
Also starring Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sharmin Segal and Sanjeeda Shaikh, Heeramandi debuted to mixed reviews on May 1.
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