 Hello. Hello. How are you? Hello. Hello. Very well. Very well. And is this that our stupid reactions? Is that the one? That is it. Yes. Namaste. Namaste. Now are you? Namaste. Very well. Thank you. How is quarantine and everything COVID treating you? Like everybody else in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Have you got back to work at all? I know some of the productions are really, but yeah, a lot of the pre production work has begun. Okay. But we're reading scripts and signing contracts, but we haven't yet gotten to shoot. Okay. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I want to thank you so much for talking to us. We've been an admirer. We actually first saw you our first introduction, I believe was sacred games was the first time we got introduced to you. And then we just got to watch ship of this ship of this year's. Yes, as well. So we've been a huge admirer of you and your and your talent. And so we just want to start off acting because we know you're a Thespian. That's that was obvious from the first moment we ever set eyes on you. So how did so? Yeah, how did you know? When did you know that you wanted to be an actor? Go go all the way back to your childhood. Well, I think I think when I was doing a play in my school, I'm used to do these little snippets actually, they're not called plays, just one acts. And I realized that when I was almost finishing my school, I did some performances. And I won a few awards for that for acting. And the bug bit me at that time. And then I felt, okay, no, this is not for me because I never liked watching the movies that I watched in those times. I wasn't very impressed by them. So I wanted to be something else, maybe somewhere in the corporate world. And then I went to college, I did my graduation. And when I did that, I did another play, a full-fledged play. And we took it for a national competition. And I won an award there as well for acting. And then the bug really consumed me. And I said, I want to do. Then I went to the FTII, which is the Film and Television Institute. I was not a member of it. But I went there just to see what it's all about. I went to the library, I read over there. And I saw books on acting. And that amazed me because I never knew that people would read on acting and perform. So what I saw until then, I felt what is there to study and read in this craft. I mean, you just go there, you sing songs and you emotive feel and your is up and you go home. And then I went to the details and I saw a book which said an actor prepares by. Oh, yeah. Yep. And I just browsed through that. And then I read another book called Building a Character. Then I read Film as Art by Rudolf Naught. So all these books just came pouring on me and I began reading. That's where I got serious. And I said, No, I think I'd like to do this. And I saw World Cinema. I used to visit the Film and Television Institute, frequented. And then I saw World Cinema. I had friends over there. So they would take me and sneak me in actually. And then I would watch a few films. And I remember watching Polish films, French films, German films, Japanese films, films by Kurosawa, films by Goddard, films by the great masters. And then that's that's the time it struck me that yeah, this is it. I mean, that's all we've we have seen. I mean, as Corbin said, our first introduction was obviously when in sacred games and then the most recent thing was Shibathesius. But we've also obviously seen you in Patelok. We've seen you with Detective Bianca Spokshi, Talvar. And how how did you go from the experience you had where you were training you were learning to becoming a professional working actor? What was that transition for you? Well, I tried to go to a film school, actually an acting school. We have two very good acting schools in India. One is the National School of Drama. And then there's the Film and Television Institute, which is where all our actors have passed out from. I applied for the National School of Drama, I think in 1992 or something like that. It was a zero year. There were no admissions. There was a strike there. And there were no admissions. So I lost my admission because of that. 96 I think I applied again. And I you know, there's a postal order form that you got to fill up and send. And that postal order is for 15 rupees, Indian rupees. By the time I actually applied for it that year, it had gone up by five rupees, which was 20 Indian rupees. And I didn't know that I just send the 15 rupee order back to me. Oh, no, it's gone money, it has to be 20 Indian rupees. So I lost my admission because of that as well. Oh, no. I lost it. I told myself that okay, I'm losing my patience over this now. I need to start working right away. And I remember I borrowed the prospectus of the National School of Drama from a friend of mine. And I began reading the syllabus, the course syllabus. And I began ticking out things and I said I will find a teacher for each one of them for myself. And I'll begin my own process of learning. So I took the first thing, which was yoga. And I went and searched for a yoga teacher. Then there was classical dance. I went and searched for a classical dance teacher. Then there were readings, etc. So I found my way into learning on my own. That is why I guess it took me such a long time. But I just was determined that I will prepare on my own. And after which, I think I left the syllabus, I remember discarding that prospectus. And I began searching my own grammar after that. That's how the whole transition happened. And you, I don't know if you still do it, but you, do you still teach acting? Yes. Okay, so what is that like? Obviously because you didn't, you said you didn't go to a lot of those trainings early on at least. So did you take some of the stuff that you learned? And do you incorporate that into your, what you teach now? Absolutely, yes. Okay, I do that. It's my own grammar that I teach. So when I used to learn earlier in my earlier days, I used to attend workshops. So from 1996 onwards, I began attending workshops by Indian actors, by actors who came from abroad, people from France, New Mexico. And I was learning at that time. So the methods I was learning were very typical in the sense they were either method acting, or they were the Govian method, or the Jacques Lacocque method. And I was learning these in somewhere. I, I don't know why I wasn't finding what I was looking for. Something was missing in every technique that I was trying to apply to myself. And that's the time I remember that there was a French workshop that was scheduled. And I hadn't registered for that. So I remember going in over there, standing at the door, the closet already began. I traveled from Mumbai to Pune to do that class. So I got late on the road. And I stood over there and I asked a gentleman, the teacher over there that can I come in? I'd like to register. And he asked me in French, do you know French? I said no. So then he said it in French. Later on, I got to know this. He said, this is not the place for you, you need to leave. I found that rather rude. And you tell me to leave. So that hit me at that time. I think some instances happened like that, a few of them. And then I really, I don't know why it wasn't really a sense of trying to discard something. But I just found that I don't want to go and do this anymore with anybody. I just like to be on my own. And I don't mind going to the rigor and taking years to arrive there. But I want to search my own craft. And I think these things took me on to doing this. Well, like Corbin said, when we watched you, it's obvious when we watch the actors that we've been exposed to throughout our lives, but especially in the last year and a half with Indian cinema, when we've watched Amitabh Bachchan and we've watched Manoj and we've watched Nawaz Nintadiki, you can see immediately the level of training and study that's gone into the craft. You could just you can see it and you think to yourself, that is a thespian would really like to know how would you describe the way you process? Do you process differently for each character? Is it what Shaila Buf referred to his process as being method adjacent? He kind of borrows from method but isn't definitively method. So how would you describe your process for your character creations? So I work a lot with Indian methodologies. We have a technique over here called the Natya Shastra, which is the Indian methodology of acting and arts, dance and acting and arts. So I try to take and imbibe a lot of things from there. My physical training is based on again Indian methodologies. So we have very scientific forms of dance and martial arts. We have something called the Chowdance, which is C-H-A-U. It's a masked form in the east of India. So the dancer wears a mask and the dancer dances. And there are just two minute or three minute snippets that they perform because you can't last longer. You go out of breath. So they perform that for that much of time. And there's a story weaved into that. And that story reflects many nuances and many philosophies, those short snippets. So I've trained a bit in that. And I use that for my training because your face is hidden. And the philosophy of that dance form is that when you perform, your skill as a craftsman will reflect on the mask. So if you feel an emotion deeply, and if you're able to weep inside yourself, the mask, which is static will appear as if it's weeping. So that's now, you know, please go ahead. So it's optical illusions, what do you say in physics? So that's what appears on the mask. And that's an immense, immense training methodology for actors over here in my country, I feel, because your whole body then begins to find its own intelligence to push all the energy into the face, because cinema is all about face. So we use this theatrical art form to adapt it into the film world. And this helps a lot into imbibing the entire breath process and the energy levels into the face, so that the face begins to reflect what your entire body is feeling. Then I have trained in a bit of Kathakali. Kathakali is a mind form. It works only on mudras, which is hand gestures and eye movements. That's all it does. And it speaks to you for hours together. Performers of Kathakali perform for nine hours on stage at a stretch. And there's an audience sitting over there at night. They perform at night only. And they work only on their faces, their eyebrows, their eyes, and their fingers. That's all. It's a mimetic art form. And I find that very interesting to use it. Then I work on Kalari Payatu, which is again an Indian martial art form. Kalari Payatu is yoga in movement. It's one of the oldest forms of martial arts in the world. So when you train in all these things, you find a physical intelligence. Whenever I approach a character, that's the first thing I do. I find a physical intelligence of the character first. So I form a regime for myself every morning, which comprises of certain Choudhans movements, certain Kalari Payatu movements, certain Kathakali movements, and certain breath techniques from yoga. That is my summation of that particular character only. If I'm making a ship of thesis, then it has got a permutation combination of all these four. And I began to practice that. That builds my physical intelligence and my spine. The spine is a very crucial element of acting. Your spine has all the nervous system connected to it. So your spine and your breath, they are the prime supporters of your performance, not your body, but those two. And then I work on the mental intelligence of the character, which means I read a lot. Anywhere that are connecting points on logic. I don't improvise. I don't imagine and I don't react. These three things are out of my system completely. Because these are the ones I was taught to do when I was doing workshops. And I asked myself one day, what if I remove these three things? Because they are the pillars of acting, imagination, reaction and improvisation. I said, if I remove, what do I have therefore? And that's where my research began. And I began to research on what else is there therefore about acting, which I can explore. That's where the mental intelligence builds up. And I work a lot on logic. I don't follow an imaginary story that I create in my head. I pick up things from the script. I read the script multiple times. And I pick up everything I can from the script. All kinds of clues, keys to the character. I pick them up. I make an essay from the script itself. And then I begin to work on each one of them, which means it can go into connecting two paintings. It can go connect Western classical music. It can go connecting to Indian classical dance forms. It can go connecting to poetry, literature from anything to anything. That's why I collect my mental intelligence. Then I go to the spiritual experience of the character, which does not mean I sit in meditation. I work out the semblance of this character in the universe. Why are such characters here? What is their purpose? What do they do to humanity at last? These three layers are what I work on continuously. So when I go on set, I'm working on these three layers continuously at one point of time. As the camera switches on, I'm functioning in all the three levels. And this helps me a lot to find that balance of what this performance should be there for. And I normally connect acting to a candle. So when you light a candle, there's a wick. The wick is your body of the actor. And the light that you see around the candle, that's what acting is. It's larger than who you are. This is a world philosophy of the character, not merely what you read in the script. It has to resonate in the world. It has to resonate with the world audience. So you find the semblance of it. That's where when you perform as an actor, at least for me, I find my body very small to resonate such a big aura of the character. The character is always bigger than who I am. The character is never inside me. I am inside the character. Yeah, it's obvious that you're a teacher, man. That was wonderful. Rick was also this old man that saw on the screen with me was also my teacher in high school, my theater teacher. So that was good. So whenever we're back in Mumbai, we're going to come take one of your classes. So that'll be nice. Anyways, I'll actually want to get because we actually just watched Ship of Theseus. Just a few days ago, blown away, the movie was incredible. Beautiful movie. There's so much about that movie that we talked about. But I want to get into your character specifically. How quote unquote, I know you just gave your thing away. How method did you go for this? Obviously, I know about the transformation. I'd like to talk to you more about it. But in terms of like, how much did you live like this character day to day? Or do you do that at all? You know, for this especially, I performed Gandhi as well. For television series and for a feature film. The process for Gandhi and this performance was very similar. I began actually to live this kind of a life for many months as the monk. So part of the physical transformation, there was a style of living a way of waking up in the morning, a way of going to sleep at night, a way of thinking and focusing my mind on. So that wasn't me that there wasn't Neeraj at all, because Neeraj wouldn't do that on a day to day basis. But the monk would do that. I began my mind had to focus on something specifically throughout the day. That was very difficult because it would be distracted by Neeraj's mind. And I had to play my mind back again of the character to say no, this is not what you must or should be thinking through the day. So that's where the whole transformation began mentally for me. That included chanting shlokas, that included prayers, that included almost wearing things that the monk was wearing on a day to day basis, not the whole day. But for a period of I would be dressed by that, just to sense that is not about feeling the costume. It's not as mundane as that. It's about being in the bare minimal and to understand how that affects the mind, therefore, because amongst these to be in bare minimal and to enlarge the mind to take in and come encompass a larger philosophy of life and not just a materialistic world. So when you go into that realm, you have to become minimalistic in everything that includes your food habits, your health habits, your clothing, the books and the luggage that you carry. I am very used to carrying huge amounts of luggage when I travel. And when I began to process this character into my system, I had to live with very little with everything. I spoke very less. And when I spoke, I thought immensely before I spoke that became a way of life for me slowly. Then my reading process began. I actually met a lot of monks as well. And question them again, not every monk. I met liberal monks, monks who were, yeah, who were not fanatics, who were not fundamentalists. So I went to them and I spoke, I spent time with them. And that revealed a lot of things. Anand Gandhi, my director gave me a lot of books to read on world philosophy, on vegan, on vegetarianism, on philosophers who believe in nonviolence and who these philosophers are. They were from Harvard, they were from everywhere, all over the world. I began reading them and had a very new perspective to life itself. So when you get into that, when you process that in a film or while you're shooting, that happens almost automatically by default. You're not really thinking now what to do, because you're almost living there. That's how the transformation is for this. But this one was separate from my other characters because I was living like this for a long, long life. I began living that way. But I think you would say the process of though, obviously the process is going to be different with each character. Obviously, this was compared to Patholok. It seems you always will work from the inner person out, whichever the character is going to be, you're going to be working from the inside out. Yeah, and whereas you wouldn't focus on what most actors, especially in the West, would focus on, which is obviously the script is where you go and you take everything. But then they would work a lot on back story and creating something about story seems like your preference is to work from something within every little nugget you can get from the script and then contextually what's going on in the moment for this character and just letting the inner life animate what's going on in the now. Is that a safe way to describe it? That's absolutely yes. And just to extend that thought, you know, in the Indian philosophy, we believe in something that the body has the human body. They're called centers, which we call chakras, chakras. Yeah, we're here, here, here. So there are seven centers and each of the centers connect with a color and an emotion. So when I'm performing, I'm also activating these centers continuously through the yoga breath techniques and through the yoga, Surya Namaskar, which we do. So when you do that, your centers get activated. When you perform, you're also focusing on those centers to realize where is my energy shifting in this scene? Or where is energy shifting now? Is it down? Absolutely on the last chakra? Or am I able to shift the energy up here somewhere? Because this is the emotion center somewhere. So these are all emotion centers. And you figure out what emotion you're working with, and you activate that chakra. At the same time, all other chakras and all the centers are also activated. So you play this little thing within yourself inside your entire focus is actually very inner in the method that I process. Yeah, and the result of what my actor, my co-actors doing with me. That is also an awareness I have. Yes, because I go on to my co-actor, if I go inside then I'll be in my own world. Now this transaction that I have with my co-actor is very, very interesting because my methodology is different, my co-actors methodology is different. Right. And here all processes come live where you're able to collaborate whatever philosophy you follow in your life, your religion or whatever it is, if you're not able to collaborate, then there's no point having that. The essence of all studies and philosophies collaboration with the world. So I find this very exciting. Yeah, I collaborate, leave my understanding of my life and my character. How am I collaborating with this? And how does my training come into process now in this present moment that I'm shooting this scene at this point of time? The camera is on, the sound is on and the director is looking at us. How am I collaborating? This present moment becomes everything at that point of time. Yeah, this is our style of conversation and we're loving it. But yeah, on the transformation part of that character, I know you did it yourself, but how long did it take you? And what did you do it healthily unlike AK, like a Christian bale? Or did you or did you go the Christian bale direction and just throw throw everything? So it took me, I think about, I think about four to six months of transformation physically and mentally and spiritually. But I never went the unhealthy way. I never consumed apples or caffeine or whatever. I was living on on a diet that a monk would live on. So it was it did come to almost liquid diets after a point of time. But I was living on very bare minimal but I had to make sure that because when I did this film, I was 42 years of age. And that was rather late in terms of physically transforming and not using non vegetarian food or medicines. I rejected that. I didn't consume I'm a non vegetarian by nature. But I did not eat anything at that time, which was meat or flesh, neither eggs. And I survived basically on vegetarian food, which is very difficult for me because I've never survived like that before. But I took to the philosophy of the character. And I began eating that and living by that. But I had to gym a lot. I don't gym otherwise. There's a lot of weight training because my trainer told me your muscles have to be very hard and tight. If you don't do that, when you get back your body, your skin will shrink. You will look like a 65 year old man. He said you have to take care and have to do about two to three hours of weight training every single day. But I argued saying if I do that, I'm eating such minimal food. I'm not even taking protein milkshakes nothing. He says but that's your journey. If you don't want to do it, then use lesser weights. But there's no other way out. You've got to harden your muscles. So the skin on top can become frail. But when you put the weight back on, it has to be tightened back again. So that was the process of weight training and eating less and less and less. That became slightly dangerous at points because when I had to go for my heart checkup and my blood checkup and everything, sugar levels, those were little dangerous moments. Things would just drop. You know, and I was advised by the doctors, stop it right away because otherwise consume, otherwise consume meat. Otherwise consume meat, that may help you. But you can't live on vegetarian and leaves and you can't go on gymming yourself like this. What I held on to that, I did have vegetarian proteins that is what we take as lentil soup and all that. So I took that and I survived on that for a long, long time. But it came to a point where one day I remember the last day of the shoot, I think second last day of the shoot, I almost, that was my last day of gymming. I didn't want to gym anymore. And my director said, stop gymming, you've already reduced 18 kilos, we don't need you anymore. You're chill, relax, just come and shoot. But I was adamant I was rather stubborn at that time and I went for my last day of gymming. And I remember walking on the treadmill and there's a gentleman who came to my side, to my left. He was about I think 75 years of age. Definitely. He was an army general, one could make out. Absolutely stiff guy, well built, robust. He was walking on the treadmill. And he gave me a look. And I was hunched by then, you know, I was so much my back was hunched. And I was slowly walking on that treadmill, like an old man. And he looked at me. He was twice my age, literally. And he looked at me as if, what the hell are you doing here, man? The hospital taking care of you. And I look back at it, I smile. And before I could realize it, I dropped, I blacked out. Oh, instructor came over there, they picked me out, I believe that's what they told me. And I blacked out completely. And then of course, food was given to me, et cetera. I'm in Saline and all that. I refused food back again. When they said, please eat, I said, no, I'm not sectional that. So I got back to life. And then I shot again. And again, I remember while going on sets I'd almost, you know, again, I blacked out on sets because I just could not contain it in food was so little. And Jimming was continuous. So so those were the experiences that it paid off. It paid off. For sure. And you got you got to use it as the character. I mean, you got to be in that place of physical duress that the character was in. I'm really interested to know like, for example, from what we've been exposed to with most Western actors is you get you get raised up through Stanislavski and then Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner. And you're taught with with Stanislavski to work out in your learn to be in the moment. And there's a particular timeframe where you can get out of your head and actually use those techniques so they're habituated. You're not thinking about them anymore. How long do you think it took for you? And would it be the same for other actors to learn what you learned? Process that enough that it's now habits so that when you are on set, you're doing pato look, you can be working with your shockers, but not be in your head. That's that's extraordinary to me. And how how long did you think it took you to make that a habit? And you're not even thinking it's just what you do? Well, if you ask me, I'm still doing that. And I'm still learning that it's a long learning process. Yeah, how do you how do you get into that automatic mode? You know, when you're on set, right? I'm still learning that I still have to get that absolutely to the tea that you know, I'm there and I'm only that I'm not processing anything else at all. Even now when I go on set, I carry my briefcase like any corporate guy would. And I have all my notes inside that. So when I open my briefcase inside my van, I normally tell my 80s that look, do not disturb me for the next 45 minutes. No tea, no food, nothing at all, no knocking on my door. Leave me and I'm preparing right now. So I go there. I open my briefcase and I spread my notes out on the table completely. And I began begin all my research material back again. I begin processing back again. That's where I begin to transform for the last final time inside my van. When I come on set, I'm still processing a lot of things processed. Absolutely. Yes, like you said, this becomes a habit. It has become a habit till now. But I'm yet to arrive there when I say, I can leave home and I can go and I don't need my briefcase. And I can just go on set bang on. And I say, here I am. Right, you know, I wish I can do that. I still I'm not doing that because I get scared doing it. I've tried once or twice in certain scenes. I went back, I took my briefcase back again, because I sometimes there's something missing. There's something organic missing. And I could not survive without that. But I have soft to those actors who can actually do that. They're just alive and bang on they're there. Well, you just you reminded me of something Daniel Day Lewis said when when he was asked why he uses the process he does, which everyone knows that he has always been full blown method. He's the character 24 seven, which I Corbin and I just cannot comprehend working that way. And but his answer was honest. He said, I don't think I'm a good enough actor to do it any other way. That's that's that's my process. That's bullshit. But I understand it in terms of what you just said, every. It's the beautiful thing about the craft is that every actor has the process that they use with each character. And it's a continual point of learning where you never really, you know, with musicianship, you can reach a level of expertise that you feel a level of accomplishment and with acting, you can feel great one show. And then the next night, you don't know what you did out there. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, another thing, talking about Daniel Day Lewis, another thing that happens when you go on set is also to be able to be open to changes or shifts that they might come up with. And if you say, no, I've prepared only this, and I'm unable to shift out of this parameter, then that's not a technique anymore. Absolutely. You're bound by the chains of your craft. The craft's made for you to be free and open enough to take in anything that the director might come in. I've been on sets where directors have heard the dialogue on the scene, I mean, on set. We're performing it. And suddenly the director says there's a great director in India. I won't name him. He suddenly says, give me a break, Neeraj. Go to your van. Have some coffee. I'll rewrite the scene right away. We're changing this. It's not working for me. So he goes back, we wait for an hour. He rewrites three pages. It's not a small scene. Oh, man, it's the whole thing. He comes back, gives me fresh lines, completely fresh. Nothing to do with the plot of that scene. And that shocks you, you know, when I get that. And he says, I only have 10 minutes to go because we're losing light. This is funny. Can you get ready with not only the lines, with the performance, with everything, but years where the craft comes in, you know, years technique comes in. Because that's where you take it. And you say, okay, I have only 10 minutes to go and I can look outside and I know the light is going. And I'm prepared for this. That's where your years of work and craft come in. And that's where you say, you know, I am equipped. You can give me anything. And I'm equipped to fight that. And you, one loves working with directors like this. In fact, I look forward to this all the time. Whereas it tells me, okay, now, do this now, with this concept or this context in mind, shift your body position like this, remove the thought process you had earlier. And I'm removing your co-actor. I want you to do this with a wall. And that's interesting, exciting for me. Let's do this. That's where it comes in. You're not there. You're not reacting to anything. And the director says, can you do it another way? And I tell him, no, I can go deeper this way if you want to, but I can't give this expanse because this is the way I feel we'll hit it. If I go deeper into this, we'll hit the hit the rock. But if you go this way, then we'll be doing many, many things and we'll arrive anywhere. I believe concept a lot that taking one thing and going deeper than trying various methods of doing the same thing or various styles of doing the thing. That's my personal thing. I'm not saying the others are wrong, but that's my personal process of doing it. And in fact, Daniel Day Lewis also, I think it was Lincoln where he insisted that people on set call him. Call him Mr. Mr. Mr. President. Mr. President. Yeah. Yeah. So that could be pretty rather nagging for people on set. I've heard that people complaining. Yeah. This is of the actor. Yeah. That's how it is. And if you can respect that, then you get performances of that caliber. Yes, absolutely. And on, you know, great actors like Daniel Day Lewis, you've worked with some of, in our opinions, the finest talent India has to offer Manoj, Noazad and Siddiqui, the late great Irfan and all these great actors. Is that something that you look for in projects? Who else is attached so you can act with these other actors? Is that like a big draw for you? It's a big draw. Yes. Yes. I look forward to that. I always ask people who are my co-actors, you know, I have been blessed that I've gotten the opportunity to work with such amazing performers and absolutely great directors as well. Yeah. I've worked with people like Shyam Benegal, who made this television series on Gandhi. I've worked with Anurad Kashyap, not a great director. I've worked with Devakar Banerjee. Now, these are absolute greats. And I've been fortunate to be able to work with such amazing talents, directors and actors, especially. In fact, Irfan, Noaz and Manoj have been by far the greatest talent that we've had. Also Nasiruddin Shah. Yes. Yeah. No, no. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was lucky to work with him in two projects. One was an international film called The Hungry. It was an adaptation of one of Shakespeare's plays and also a play. I did a play with him as well. We worked on stage. So these have been absolute highlights of my career. When I look back, I feel blessed that, oh, wow, I've been rather fortunate to be working with these people. Nasiruddin Shah and Neeraj in a play. Where can we watch this? Do you have it? Can you give it to us? It was called The Father. It's an amazing play. I forget the writer now. And we did 60 shows. I could not because I was shooting for Sacred Games. So I could do 10 shows and I had to opt out. But he did 60 shows back to back. Can you imagine? That's how it was booked. So there were two auditoriums booked 60 shows, two shows every evening. Holy shit! So he didn't do like he didn't do like the standard equity eight shows day off. Eight shows day off. No, no, no, no, no. Continuous, not a single day off. That was his personal challenge. Wow. He's above 70. Nasir. Wow. He took it up as a challenge saying, I'd like to do a play back to back 60 shows. So 60 days of booking. Wow. Just 10 days. And I could feel the fatigue coming in. I'm sure. Can you imagine? No. And I was I was I felt rather discouraged when I had to leave because of Sacred Games because I said, oh, hell, I wish I could be part of this journey and I could look back on this one day and say I did 60 shows back to back with a stalwart like. But well, it couldn't happen. But I've heard so much about that play later when people came and said every show, by the way, was a house full with people fighting for tickets outside. Oh, yeah. Every show, I'm sure. I'm sure. And then he plans now to do the same thing somewhere abroad now. That's what that was the talk Los Angeles. Take all that up and to perform. I don't know. But those are very initial talks. I don't know if that's that's going to be done. But he had this plans to book like this, you know. So we had one in South Bombay, which we booked and one in North Bombay, which we booked and the suburbs. So we did that. I couldn't be I could only be part of the South Bombay shows and then I left. But it's an incredible act, I think, incredible. Absolutely is. And that leads me. I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to I want to know for sure. If if you had to make the choice as to whether you would do motion pictures, standalone films, TV series or theater, and you could choose only one of those. Do you have one that you would instantly choose? That's like saying what I would choose my dad or my mom. Right. I've said the same thing to somebody said. It's like asking me to choose one of my kids. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It's so difficult to do that. I just can't even imagine that. I mean, not not trying to be fair, but even otherwise I can't imagine not doing one at the cost of another. I don't know how that would really work. Because each one of them television. Yes, I don't know. Television is not something that I'm really into. I do web series. I don't know television, but film and theater. Yes, these are foundations and very, very tough to I believe they are just extensions of each other. They nearly really merge into each other. The formats are different, but they merge and you can't. They're inseparable. I don't know how you can separate that. And on the OTT platform, Sacred Games and and put the lock, which we just watched just recently, it's both of them are fan fantastic. And and you're fantastic. Everybody is fantastic in them. The one scene specifically I want to talk about and put the lock is between you and Chvastika, where you're in the bedroom and she is trying to love on you, basically. And in that whole scene, we got to talk to Swastika about it. We absolutely adored that scene and I want to get your perspective on it. And like, I think she said a lot of it was kind of improvised almost. Is that correct? So she works on that methodology because it works on being in the present moment and improvising. And reacting to the scenes that one does. And we did have a talk before that because I told her that my method is something else. Yeah. But I wouldn't want to discuss my method and our techniques right now on set, but we'll go with whatever you are doing and we'll take it from there. So that's how it happened, actually. The whole thing happened because I wanted her to lead the entire thing so that I could use my craft my way and not impose that onto a co-actor. I found that rather fair to perform that scene. So that's my beginning point. And I said, OK, fine. And anyway, the scene actually gets initiated by her. It's not my character. It's her character that initiates the scene. So I found it in all fairness to let her know that she can begin that entire sequence. And I'll follow with that. Yeah. This makes it all the more beautiful. And it was already a beautiful scene. I love that scene so much that I did a standalone video just dissecting how beautiful I felt that scene was and my impressions I got that she confirmed when we interviewed her. But what you've said and you said it earlier when you mentioned it, I thought of that scene how here are two actors who I knew you guys have very different process. But the beauty of acting and you equated it to having respect for somebody's different belief systems or their world views is that you can both come from your respective places and respect one another's process, recognize that they're different and you can still bring them together and see something that is what acting should be. I absolutely love that you both had different processes and that you not only deferred to her out of a kindness aspect, but your deference to her was because that's the way the scene is written. So I'm going to let you go with the scene as freely as you need to because I know the one who's doing the heavy lifting in this scene is you and I'll go with what you give me. I think that's fantastic. And you know, one more thing, Rick, just to add to that, there is a asana in yoga where you bend your entire physical body and you touch your forehead to the ground, to the earth and that that that stance that pose or that yoga asana is called to surrender and Hindi it's called Viragya and it means in English to surrender. That means whatever you know and whatever you've done so far, you surrender that and you become neutral or zero. And that's a very beautiful cause very beautiful. And I applied that when I was there asking myself, how do I now initiate this? Because if I am saying that, okay, you can lead the scene, how will I therefore respond to the entire thing? And that's what came to my mind at that time. And I said, if I surrender physically, emotionally and mentally, then I can use and my craft will come to use on its own. I don't have to bring it into the scene. Yeah, you see the entire sequence, physically, also that surrender was there mentally, emotionally, that surrender was there continuously. And the craft took over and the craft was doing everything. So you know, you reflect back on your years of work. And then you see how it comes to your rescue or your help. When you work, you know, that's something so beautiful. And what the beautiful thing as well, because obviously when you see someone do beautiful work with another actor, you know, one of the reasons their work was so beautiful is because of what the other actor gave to them. And what is so beautiful about your process is that your process definitively lets the other actor know, you can trust me, which is huge. One of the worst things you know, you can have is to work with an actor that you don't know that you can trust their process. It hampers your own process. And I just want to applaud the the uniqueness of your process being yours, yet also being open to the other actor. And your process is what made Schwozztick's process blossom and flourish. Thank you. Yeah, really beautiful. Sorry, I just thought of a joke. Anyways, we don't have to talk about that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you know, this is not even internet safe. But yeah, I want to talk to you about the OTT platforms and your your view on them. And we think it's a fantastic thing that has come to the Indian cinema world because it's given fantastic artists that aren't the quote unquote Shahrukh Khan's or the stars basically of the world, that the chance to shine that are like the true like the fact that Monaj has family man and obviously put a lock came out with all of you guys in it and then sacred games. And there's so many other platforms now. What do you do you feel that same way that it's giving so many so much more opportunities for great stories and great actors to absolutely absolutely bang on because I think before the OTT platform existed, we had a limitation of many, many things, not that cinema was limited. Cinema has done his journey in a huge way. I mean, but when OTT came in a lot of people and I would include myself as well into that. A lot of us got a space to explore content which we would not have otherwise explored in films. So that gave us that space and also the liberty because there was no censorship. I'm not just saying liberty in terms of using sex and violence, but liberty and expression, liberty in terms of time, you get nine hours to take your character from point A to point B. That's mammoth. That's huge. Right. I mean, you can really get into the most detailed intricacies of your character and express them. You can design a performance through nine hours of work, through nine episodes of work. In film, it's just two hours. And you've got to be very brief. You know, you've got to know that, okay, I've got certain traits which I need to express, which I need to come out with, with the audience. So I just have two hours and my character is there only for about an hour or so in the film. How do I put all this information over there? Here you get nine hours of space for the writer, director, actor, everybody. And you see the flux of talent, amazing talents have surfaced. We never, ever heard of these people, neither actors, writers, nor directors, nor art directors, nor DOPs, none of them we had heard of. And they began surfacing from nowhere. And that's, that's the beauty about the OTT. Yeah, I wish that OTT garners and gathers more audiences. They still don't have a mass audience following. Yeah, I just does, you know, I don't get that. It'll get there. It's it's building here in LA radio. There was a segment that happened about two weeks ago, specifically talking about how investors were looking at the OTT platform specifically with India, because they were recognizing with Amazon and Netflix were doing. And they were seeing the increase. So we so hope it love. Yeah, so hope that happens because I agree from an acting standpoint, when you're on a series, it's like what Mel Gibson did Hamlet, but he just did the motion picture and he was asked about it. And he said, I feel like I've never done Hamlet because I was, I worked on it for three weeks and was gone. I really don't even think I did Hamlet because it didn't get to live there. What are some other projects that we can be made aware of? I mean, we can go to IMDB and see what's going on. But what for you are is in the forefront that we can look forward to that you're excited about? But don't lock season two. But don't lock season two. I don't know. Yeah, possible. I can't say anything at this point of time. Yeah, as the producers will recall. But yes, there are a few web series that I've done. And they are talking about season two for that. Yeah. But I can't comment on that. But yes, there's a feature film by the Barker Banerjee, which is produced by Netflix. That's something I'm looking forward to. It's a concept like the ownership of thesis. It's got three stories woven into each other. So that's that's an amazing film I'm looking forward to. It's another kind of character that I get to create with one of our leading actresses of our industry. She had been unwell for some time and then she came back to work. And this, I think, is one of her opening works. So it was a pleasure to be working with her. So that's one project that I'm looking forward to. And there's another one very beautiful one, which is a Hollywood project. It's been produced by it's a web series has been produced by one of the biggest producers in Hollywood, and will be up on one of the biggest channels, not Netflix, not Amazon. What it is, I cannot comment on that. Hello, that's okay. That's a beautiful project. I am really looking forward to that. We have already begun shooting last year. But because of the pandemic, things have come to a pause. We'll resume again, probably early, very early next year, not this year. And this goes on has gotten on some of the cast from the US, from a certain European countries and also from India. So you're coming to Hollywood. Fantastic. But yeah, this, this will be there on that platform. My So yeah, sorry. No, no, no, I was just gonna say anything we can do to promote that and talk about that, you know, we're going to. Yeah, that yeah, we have. Yep, yep, you need to come. People need to that's one of our biggest things is that we want people that just aren't in India to realize how much talent is in India. Because obviously there's so many actors that we absolutely love in the world should know about that. Yeah, that's just they don't because at least in America, they're very, you know, you know, it's a different language. I'm not going to watch it. I don't like subtitles. Unfortunately, but hopefully it's changing with them. It's changing parasite winning the Oscar. Hopefully that changes some things. But we'll see. I don't know. I want to finish it off by doing some rapid fire. But also I did hear that you don't do big song and dance movies, which is really sad that I will not see you in a dance number with Rithik. You know, you know, Gopin, just to just interrupt. I've done this beautiful romantic film called Once Again. Okay, I don't know if you've watched that. It's a very nice feature film. I think it's on Netflix. I think so. Okay, see if you can get that. It's called Once Again. Okay, it's with one of our leading actresses, Shefali Shah, a brilliant actress herself, who's done Delhi crime. She's the lead. Yes. Yes. So she and myself, we were the two performers. It's a middle age love story. And it's a beautiful love story. I haven't watched my words so much as much as I did for this film. I watched this film at least about four times. And that's a lot for me because I don't watch it so many times. Any of my work. I love that film. You must watch. It's a beautiful film. It's on Netflix. It's my opinion, my desire to do commercial films always. I would love to do a dance number with it any day. I can't wait. Oh, in fact, I was doing a workshop with one of the dance choreographers. Again, I can't name him right now, but he is one of the top choreographers we've gotten right now, probably in himself abroad and he's come back. And he did an acting workshop with me. And at the end of it, when we finished, I said, I won't let you go from this workshop till you and I dance together. So we did an entire number together. It was great fun because he taught me certain moves, you know. I said, I'll teach you two techniques of advanced acting. If you teach me two dance movements. Yeah, I said for free. So he did that. We we hit it so wonderfully well. I'd love to work with you. I like dancing myself. Yeah. So that's not something I would say no to speaking it in speaking it into the universe. We'll get there. Anyway, heard it here first. I want to finish it off with some just a rapid fire questions. I want to once again, thank you so much for talking to us. But these are just little random questions. Coffee or chai? Chai. Favorite alcoholic beverage? Yeah. What kind? Well, any kind, but not too much if it money. Gotcha. Favorite Hollywood film? Oh, that too many. Um, um, when he won recently by by by Scorsese, Shutter Island. Oh, Shutter Island. Favorite Indian film any region? Um, a big only feature film by Satyajit Ray called both hit Panchali. Do we we didn't watch that one? No, we didn't. No, let's watch this. Great. You've seen the trilogy and one of one of his other ones that this is one of the opportunities is the first one. Oh, then sorry, I don't know why we had a brand. Yeah, we've seen the whole trilogy. Yeah. So that's the first one. The first one. Yeah, I spoke it in the Bengali lingo. Actually, but here, Panchali, that's how it is. That's right. But the partially this channel is called our stupid reactions for a reason. It's fine. The favorite Hollywood director? Scorsese. Favorite Indian director, if you can, if you can, one which I worked with or anybody, anybody, then I would say Satyajit Ray. Favorite Hollywood actor? Robert De Niro. Favorite Shakespeare? Macbeth. And your favorite book? Ah, I haven't read when I learned of reading a book, I just read part of it and then I thought away. I just got it. I haven't really read books completely. But otherwise, I would say a book called The Autobiography of a Yogi. Interesting. And one last question I've asked is to almost every person we've interviewed. Why, in your opinion, do you think white foreign actors in Indian cinema are just terrible? I'm sorry, I didn't get that cover. Why do you think white foreign actors in Indian cinema are so terrible? Wife. No, white, this white foreign actors. White. White. White skin, you're saying. White skin. Why are white actors so bad in Indian cinema? So. We got there. OK. I guess I haven't. So. Well, I don't think I should be saying anything. That's fine. That's fine. We we've asked everybody. It's fine. But if you ever know anybody who does need any white actors, you can hit us up. I want to thank you so much for talking to us. It was a pleasure. It was basically like going to school, but actually having a good teacher unlike somebody I had. But it was lovely talking to you. Your talent is obvious to anybody who watches you. And I want to thank you just for doing that and sharing your talent with us and with the world in general. And I can't wait for you to come to Hollywood. Rick, go ahead. Rick, thank you. Pleasure talking to you. Really. I think we it's really an honor. We've been really blessed over the past year and a half to interview Swarovski and Manoj and Nawazidin. And we can go just go down the list of these actors that we have first fallen in love with because we're we're actors and we love the art form and we love film and just we are big fans of yours and the love you have, the way you can articulate being a teacher at heart. Just wish you all of the best and anything that we can know about that you're doing, especially when it comes to training actors. We want to know about that and continue to support you in every way that we can. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thank you. You have a great day. All right, man. Have a great future.