Filmmaker Subhash Ghai has collaborated with multiple top Bollywood stars throughout his long career. Recently, Ghai spoke about actors he has worked with, like Jackie Shroff ( ), Rishi Kapoor ( ), Raaj Kumar and Dilip Kumar ( ), and Shah Rukh Khan ( ). Ghai described actors as “children” who seek constant reassurance, categorizing them into five groups: non-actors, bad actors, actors, good actors, and great actors.
Speaking to Arbaaz Khan in a new interview, Ghai called Vivek Mushran a ‘non-actor’ as he had never been in front of a camera before being cast in . Ghai recalled how Raaj Kumar found it difficult to work with an inexperienced Mushran. Ghai said, “Raaj Kumar Sahab faced a lot of problems working with him (Mushran) because he wouldn’t say a dialogue like a dialogue; he would just straight say it.
” Ghai called Jackie Shroff a ‘bad actor’ and said, “The bad actor was Jackie Shroff in the film , and it is because whatever you say to him, he would get worried after that.” Calling Anil Kapoor a director’s actor, Ghai said, “Actor is Anil Kapoor. Those who are ‘actors’ only listen to the director.
If you want him to do a role like Lakhan, he will do it, if you want him to play the role of a lawyer, he will do it. He is purely a director’s actor. If he didn’t perform well that means the director made a mistake and not him.
” Explaining what a ‘good actor’ means and why Shah Rukh Khan fits into this category perfectly, Ghai said, “A good actor is a person who understands the scene and outperforms it, such that the director also feels that he took the scene beyond the written script. I have worked with actors who weren’t stars at the time but they had their own qualities. For instance, I have worked with Shah Rukh in and sometimes I felt like he lifted scenes from what was written in the script.
Though we had our differences and we would argue; but if he is really performing, he can take a scene and lift it.” Ghai reserved the ‘great actor’ category for the legends and said, “Others are great actors and among them is Dilip Kumar Sahab. He would perform a badly written scene in such a way that people would think that it is a great scene.
They rise much above a scene. Amitabh Bachchan is like that, and sometimes Rishi Kapoor would also perform that way. Their films can be bad, but not their performances.
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