When two talented, straight-spoken people get together to chat about films and life, you’re assured an engaging experience. Precisely what happened when Naseeruddin Shah and Kangana Ranaut got chatting on ‘Tape Cast’ on Film Companion. A sampling of what they said…

The quintessential Indian hero is a goon
Kangana put a finger on that basic scary flaw of the Hindi film hero. “You can’t deny that he is somebody that breaks all the rules. He breaks the law, he is never kind to his woman, He’s always singing behind her back, ‘No no no’ means ‘Yes yes yes yes’.” In short, perfect goon material!

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When death rewrote a scene!
Naseer shared an almost unbelievable story about how scripts were written back in the day. “I was shooting this film which I will not name in which I’m playing this honest police inspector. Three brothers who are gangsters, come to my office and say ‘What do you think of yourself, etc’. And the guy who was doing this part, he had this long dialogue and there was this applause and stuff after the shot was over. Everybody went happily for lunch. The writer was there applauding also. While I’m having lunch the director comes into my makeup room with a white face and says, ‘Naseer ji we have to reshoot the scene’. So I said why? He said, ‘That third character sitting there, he’s dead by now.’ I swear to you this is true. And the writer himself is applauding ki what a scene I have written. So these are some of the reasons why I deeply love the Bombay film industry.”

Gangster – make or break
Kangana opened up about what failure really feels like. “Now people say ‘You’re facing failure. How do you feel?’ I think nothing feels the way failure felt back then. Because for me it was a matter of life and death and I had no way back. That time it actually meant a lot. Now I’ve had that breakthrough and since then I don’t feel as desperate as I did long ago. So the real meaning of desperation is when you have no way back, nowhere to go. Nothing is going to be like that ever. No amount of failure can make me feel how I felt when I failed an audition every time before Gangster and didn’t make it.”

Going for broke
“My love for acting has survived many, many phases of being completely stone broke and going without food for several days,” Naseer shared. “That’s happened not only to me, but also guys like Om (Puri) and others who were my contemporaries at FTII. We were the ones given the least chance of succeeding in the film industry.”

Watch the entire video here:

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