"I also get mistaken for a Gujrati and even a Kashmiri. But I'm neither" - Naseeruddin Shah

Courtesy: IndiaFM

Monday, March 20, 2006

On a high after the success of his film Iqbal that won him rave reviews among the film critics, his next film Being Cyrus is ready for release where he once again essays the role of a Parsi after mastering the art in films like Pestonjee and Encounter - The Killing. In a short talk to IndiaFM, Naseeruddin Shah speaks about portraying a Parsi character.

Why do you play the role of a Parsi in a lot of your films?
I get cast as a Parsi because I look like one. I also get mistaken for a Gujrati and even a Kashmiri. But I'm neither.

Your role in the film looks interesting. How different is it from some of the roles that you have done?

For me at this point of time, I'm not searching for great roles but am looking for roles which I can enjoy and where I can work with people whose company I can tolerate with some difficulty. Homi Adajania is one of them. (laughs)

You must have specialized in the Parsi dialect and body language by now?
I have specialized in playing a Parsi character and that's my fate because in my previous birth I must have been a Parsee - a bad one at that. So in this life I have to play the role of different Parsis.

Are you playing the stereotypical Parsi?
Parsis are considered to be quirky and eccentric anyways so I don't think it helps the cause by playing a Parsee's eccentricities because it is so easy to make a caricature of a Parsi and I did not want to do that. So you will see that I haven't used a Parsi accent or anything else in this film because the setting in this film is Parsi.

Do you think this film will do well among the masses?
Hopefully we will come across because of the simplicity of the performances.