 I won, I won. Oh, in my junk mail, I got an email from CVS Pharmacy saying that I won a $90 pharmacy gift card. And all I have to do is click the link that says confirm here. Isn't that awesome? I think I'll click on it. Not idiots. Screw you, you freaking losers who try to rip people off and put viruses on their computers. Unless the gift that keeps on giving, Rick. Just like your mom. Hey, welcome back to our stupid Rick's Corp. I'm Rick. Yeah, come here. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right there. Today, we have a film companion interview. This is right here at Incheon. Oh, baby. And that's all I know. He spills the tea. Awesome. How long is this bad boy? 18 men. Oh, spectacular. Bring it on. And I saw in the title, like the little thumbnail, it said, like a quote from him and said, I'm finally tiring of cinema. It's interesting. It's what, so I'm guessing he says that at some point. That would be interesting to, I mean, he's old. He's been around for a long time. It's changed a lot. He's done a lot and I wonder. And maybe he's more theater. You like theater? We know he likes theater. Yeah. Well, I've had a very recent realization for myself, which is what birthed me doing Barbarian again and teaching acting classes. So I'm, I am excited to hear this thespian talk. Here we go. After 50, almost 50 years of acting in cinema, I think I'm finally tiring of it. Stars like to make this statement. You know, I've arrived. So it'll be like the Shah and Shah arriving, you know, Hoshia. What does that mean? I'm right. And then the door will open and the star will enter. It's like feet is delta blue on part two of January. We're all gone. Never forget our first, if you'd never seen our introduction to this man, watch our interview of Deborah, which is the, yeah, the review. There's Zindagi, Delbrun. Thank you. This is my first time interviewing you. So I'm going to do my best to not be intimidated. But I want to ask you what you do as an actor to ensure that when you're working with newcomers, you don't allow them to just get caught up with the aura that a good question can come with being starstruck on set. Absolutely. I don't get pleased when newcomers say we are so nervous and all that sort of thing. And I tell them, look, this is not a boxing match that you're involved in, not a contest. So there's nothing to be nervous about. And I, I'm one of those actors who's never felt nervous about acting. From the start. Call it vanity or call it whatever you like. But the fact is this, never ever have I felt any nervousness while acting, except when I have to do a romantic song. That's understandable. And I've always found it impossible to do. But I've worked with great actors like Dil Kumar Saab, Kamal Hassan and others. Why isn't Kamal Hassan a Saab? But I've never felt intimidated by them. I don't know either. Also because they were, both these gentlemen, they are thorough professionals and they know what they want to do. And I know what I want to do. So it's like two musicians doing a jugal bandi together. So I try to, I don't make friends easily and I'm not very good with the, you know, breaking the ice between people. But when I meet a younger actor on the set who I can see is terrified of the prospect, not only of me, of the camera, of the results, etc. So I try to put him at his ease by having a little chat, you know, putting an arm around his shoulder, reassuring him. I don't know whether I succeed or not, but I do, I do try. Yeah. And well, you are succeeding clearly because Z5 has reported some pretty staggering numbers on season one of Taj. How much of that feedback were you able to sort of assimilate and bring? He looks great in that role. Like a royal? Well, I'm happy that the series is doing well naturally. But I, once I've done a job I'm through. I don't anticipate anything. I put it on my memory shelf. I don't press erase button on them all. Some of them I like. Depends. So it's, it's, it's really not much consequence to me because I'm accustomed to all the ups and downs that can happen to an actor. And I've never had any anticipations of, of any kind from any work I do for me. Doing the work to the best of my ability is of prime importance. And I think I was taught this lesson very early in my career because my first film, Nishant, made in 1975, starred Ganesh Parnad, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patel, Ambrish Kuri, Oh wow! Oh geez! And after Nishant was released, every one of them got to work. Except you. For some reason, I, I later figured out that, that reason was in fact a backhanded compliment because people didn't think I was an actor. They thought I was some local that Shyam had picked up from Hyderabad. Oh geez! Which is a huge compliment. That is a compliment. Yeah. But the fact that I never got to work, it confused me and it made me, it gave me this lesson which I have never forgotten that do your job and forget about it, you know. You've got to do that as an actor, especially up and coming. You've been doing this work for 55 years now. That's more than half your life. Damn! He's been acting longer than I've been alive. What excites you about this current phase of your career? That I'm still getting interesting parts in fact. After the age of 50, I started getting more interesting parts than I got as a young man. Not a surprise. My reputation got established with all those art movies and everything. But really challenging parts I've received in the second phase of my career, in fact, or the third phase, whatever you like to call it. The job of participating in a project which I'm going to enjoy is what drives me. If I feel I'm going to have fun doing this, I do it. One can have fun for any one of a million reasons, you know. It could be the role, it could be the director you want to work with, it could be a month of shooting in Switzerland. It could be a ton of money. But then you have to do the number with the girl. It could be anything. But these days I prefer to play cameos because I'm kind of tired after almost 50 years of acting in cinema. I think I'm finally tiring of it. I'm still enjoying the stage very much. What a shock. I hate that you say that. It's the waiting that is brain damage. That's most of acting. The fact that you're already to go in a shot. It could be waiting around hours. All systems go and as you're about to go into it and you say, I wish this didn't happen. It's the nature of the beast. I don't complain about it. I've lived with it all this time. But I'm getting a little tired of it. I'd rather be on the stage where live contact is possible between you and the viewers. In fact, I just spoke to your wife very recently where she talked to me about what she fears is this threat of delusion with just the enormous entourage that actors have today. You walked in. I don't see anyone adjusting your collar or sort of pandering to you. Hey, someone come over here. Is it something you? Because he's not a movie star. Stay away from. I don't see the need to have these people hanging around me. I never have. Shabana early in my career would advise me to get a public relations man. And I said, why did I don't need a public relations guy? I can handle my public relations. I'm not going to be interested in it in any case. And I didn't have a personal makeup man for many years. And until until it became, you know, that I was doing several movies at the same time. All movies that I'd rather forget. But sometimes two shifts a day kind of thing traveling from Ali Bagh to Rhode Island and back, you know, that kind of stuff. So I realized that I can't be having a different makeup man each time. So as we wrote in on this, one person called Jay Raj, who was an assistant to one of the makeup men, he read makeup man, and he's been with me since. He's even my manager now. Oh, wow. He run a company and he's the only one I need. And I need somebody to get me a glass of water now and then or I can get it. Myself, I don't see them. I think stars like to make this statement, you know, I've arrived. So it'll be like the Shainshaa arriving, you know, Hoshi, Bada, Bambulazza, and then the door will open and the stars. I don't think of myself as a star. Exactly. And I find a lot of the behavior of stars rather, you know, immature. But you've actually placed a lot of hope in a lot of young talent as well. Is there like a word of caution you'd want to give them to just perhaps not lose track? Love the craft. Not to lose contact with life. You know, that's what happened. See, the reason a person like Nawazuddin or Pankaj Tripathi or the late was so good, so good, Nawaz and Pankaj Tripathi, or a guy like Tushan Devayya or a guy like Gajraj Rao, KK Manoj Bajpayee, marvelous actors. Agreed. No shock that those are the people who hear that. He's relative obscurity and middle class or lower middle class homes into and They're still grateful. Nawaz and Swarabdin, the transition has been gradual. We're terrifying to think of somebody who overnight becomes a star. Swaraj cautioned them, if I may, is not to lose touch. The reason that these guys are so good is because they had real life to draw upon. Exactly. The more you become famous, the richer you become, the more isolated you become. And you lose touch with that. Touch with reality. Yes, absolutely. I suppose that's the requirement of a star in India. And the requirement of an actor is to be in touch with life. There are grey-haired guys who will dye their hair and then put white hair on it. It's true. I find it a bit hard to ask, but honestly I'm curious to know, is there an emotion that you still struggle to play on screen? Romantic songs. No, see sometimes the emotion can hit so close to home, to the bone rather, that it's discomforting. But then I don't take it personally. I don't try and become the character and feel everything he feels. It's good enough for me to represent what he feels. There was a time when I believed in trying to be the method. And the method still has a lot of useful things to offer, but this nonsense of becoming the character, I've always found ludicrous, because you can't and you shouldn't. If I decide to become the character I played in Goodbye Again, whatever it was called, welcome back. What is that? Then that means I have to go blind. Goodbye Again, I guess, right? I don't think it's an actor's job to suffer with the character. It's because Daniel is the goat, and so everybody thinks that you have to do that. Brando. Yeah, Brando. But we'll talk about that. But you took a while to get here because you've said that you were pretty hard on the sets of Jhani Bidoyaru, not nice to work at all. I mean, I would have, myself, I would have probably done something drastic to such an actor, because that was a time when I believed deeply in the method and believability and logic and all that. And Kundan was out to make the Marx Brothers kind of movie. I hadn't seen enough of the Marx Brothers then. So I found many situations in the film Ludicrous, and I said, this is not even going to be funny. I didn't find anything funny. I don't get it. What are we doing? None of us were laughing at ourselves while performing it. There's some of these that we should watch. Please let me know, obviously, in the comments. Ravi Vaswani. Wow, that's interesting. Kaushik, it's like fate has dealt a blow on part two of Jhani Bidoyaru. They're all gone. Yeah, so I gave Kundan a lot of grief, but I did apologize to him later when I saw the film. And I realized that I was mistaken and I was being unreasonable. I should have tried to get on to his wavelength instead of trying to get the film on my... Are you more trusting of your directors now? I was always trusting. I depend on my directors greatly. And I felt that Kundan was going wrong. I was mistaken. I felt it was going wrong. I don't know why I felt that. I think it's because, you know, after movies like Albert Pinto and Manthan and Junoon and so on, I was too much into this thing of logic and emoting all the time. An actor's only job is not to emote. It is to communicate. And Jhani Bidoyaru was a movie that wanted to get across a certain idea. It was not a comedy for the sake of making people laugh. It made people laugh, but it also disturbed them. Right? And maybe that's why it wasn't a big success when it was released in the theaters. But over the years, it's become a cult. And people see it now and they realize that this guy who made this movie was very farsighted to think of the no other, trying to make a sequel to it. And Kundan did try. Impossible. Because the corruption that it's talking about has now reached such humongous proportions that it would be a very expensive film to make. And secondly, he would be able to get all those actors to be other. Ever again. You also play a really terrible dad in Taj and, you know, someone really screws up his kids. In the real life front, how would you rate yourself as a father? I would rate myself as a father who tried his best. Aren't we all? It didn't always succeed. See, I was very conscious that my children should be friends with me. But, and they do try very hard not to take me seriously. And I try to say I would love them to, you know, sit and chat with me. But I don't know, they're a little bit, I don't know what the word is, uncomfortable. I think it's because of this reputation of mine. But I know I would open my veins for them if they needed it, you know. I would like them to be a little less anxious when they're around. You spoke of the reputation. Is there a price that comes with being outspoken in today's world? Not that I've had to pay. Yeah, you get hate messages and so on. I don't pay any attention to them. Yeah, all the time. I don't even look at them. They come on Facebook replies and they say that sometimes people send me letters. And I can tell by the letter, the look of the letter, because there'll be no address or sender's name on it. I don't bother about them. And it's not a question of being outspoken. It's this reputation of being this great actor, you know, which is a burden to carry around. I want, I really want to lighten up and I feel that I've been shortchanged because I never got enough chances to do comedy. Your wife talked about how comedy saved her. Yeah, exactly. And that's the last thing she expected. I think I'm not bad at comedy too, but... I say romantic numbers. Who makes romantic numbers? Instead of those, I wish they were comical numbers. But we don't obviously don't make good comedies. I mean, that's a fact. Tell me the last good comedy that you saw in this country. You know, you probably say, Wow. Well, that's true. That was the last one? I mean, Streets Come Out. I love what you said once about how... Telly Belly made us laugh. Yeah. I think there's been quite a few. There's been a lot of disappointed people won't remember you. So if you're talking to Jen Alpha, the ones that are just possibly discovering you now, leave me with two films that you really hope that they pick up of yours. I'd like them to see Bar And I suppose, maybe, though, that's a comedy here. The others I'm certain they'll see on their own anyway. Masoom We saw that one. We liked that a lot. That was a classic month one. All generations of children. They all seem like they can't eat it today. It was shot 45 years ago. So I'm not concerned about that. That they're going to see anyway. Also, my son is still singing it. So what a legacy you've left behind. Yeah. Thank you. I was lucky to be in that film. Thank you so much for talking to me. I think I did well not being intimidated. So you actually helped me. Thank you so much. He's very introspective. Very. And like all great actors can listen to him all day long. Yeah. But yeah, it's funny. It's been in my mindset a lot in recent days because I alluded to this at the outset. I had a pretty big revelation recently. And out of that revelation came the acting classes I'm teaching and the doing Barbarian again. And the revelation I had. I haven't even shared this with you. It came out of a really an awful day that turned into a good day with Andrani and I. Yeah. Sex. I don't remember when or why I started doing this, but it was going on for too long of a time where the focus of my attention was representation, getting an agent, getting a manager, getting the audition, getting a callback, getting a headshot, getting a reel, going to the showcase, doing the one-on-one. And when those things weren't being accomplished, it was very deflating for me because I was looking at the clock and thinking, okay, the year is passing and I'm not doing things and my goals were okay. By this point, I want to have gotten a guest star. By this point, I want to have gotten a supporting role. By this point, I want to have done a film. By this point, I want to... Nothing about craft. Nothing about love. And I went back and I watched an old teaching series I did that I had created. It's a four-hour video series teaching on acting. And thanks to Andrani reminding me, she just straight up said to me at one point, why aren't you doing a play? And I realized I had become way, way too fixated on career instead of craft. And it really brought me back home to my love of the craft and the fact that if you're not careful, that's a word of warning is that if you're an actor in any industry, you can easily lose sight of the fact that you love the art form and become more fixated on becoming a star than just being a good actor. And he's made choices. I'm sure he's made choices. He looked back and he went, you know what? I was, I was just thinking movie star at that time, but... He said specifically, there's a lot I'd like to forget about. A lot I'd like to forget. And yeah, as far as I talk about this in the acting class a lot, Daniel Day-Lewis, the king of method, he in no way, shape or form prescribes that for others. He has said, I think the reason I have to do that is because I don't think I'm a good enough actor to do it any other way. Which is insane. It really is crazy. And I love, you know, Jeremy Strong is also notorious in succession and Brian Cox hates it. Brian Cox says, fuck off. And says, you know, just remember your lines. Remember your lines and don't bump into the furniture. That's Cox's process. But I understand for Jeremy, I've heard him talk about his process. What's his face, right? Yeah, he's Kendall. He doesn't have, as many actors, don't have the exact same process with each role. And that's something I would love to talk with him about. I would love to talk with him about process. I would love to talk with him about the differentiation between roles. Universal principles he has scribes to versus the times he has fluctuation and times he just throws it out the window. It's super interesting that Kendall subscribes to method. Because he's one of the actors that I don't think is as strong. Until maybe I think it's fact that he does that, I think he might get in his head a little bit. He might get in his head. I don't think he's a fine actor. I think he's good. And it's not a surprise. But he's not like it's an amazing actor. But I think it now makes sense. I think he gets in his head. But it's not a surprise that, well, so does Kendall. Kendall's in his head a lot. But it's not a surprise if you look at the resumes of the primary cast members of Succession, there's only one that doesn't have a huge theater background of stage and screen. They're all Thespians with roots. It's called Colic, yeah. Who's my favorite character on this? He's magnificent. He's beautiful. But there's a funny story about Strong on the last episodes they were filming. So they were filming on a soundstage that had obviously adjacent sets and sound stages. And this guy on another production saw him come in and he came in and he asked the production assistant where the bathroom was. And he went to the bathroom. Production assistant thought nothing of it. A PA from Succession comes into the soundstage. Says, was Jeremy just in here? Yeah. Was he asking where a bathroom is? Yeah. He's going around everywhere because the scene we're filming today, Kendall's asking for a bathroom and he's going around everywhere asking people where a bathroom is. That is how method his approach to Kendall has been. Not stupid. Now you know why Cox loves him. It's just when it comes to their process, it's a completely other world. Bless his heart. Yeah. You can tell that he gets in his head. That's funny. Well, I mean, for Kendall it works. Obviously, Kendall's always in that one head. The bottom line of process for me, what I teach, my objective in teaching is to make acting. I say acting isn't easy, but it doesn't have to be hard. You can get to some basic foundations. And sadly, there's too many acting teachers who put you on this nonstop journey that never reaches its end because they want you to come back and continue taking classes. Versus, if I wanted to teach somebody how to do a triple time step in tap dancing, I have certain steps to teach them and then they execute them and then they're doing a triple time step. I believe the same is true with acting process that you can take all of these things and kind of whittle them down. And the bottom line, all process has one end in mind. Do we believe you? That's it. If the audience believes you, you've done your job. So whatever means it takes for you to achieve that end, that's why so many actors have different process. I have a hard time with acting classes because the reason I would like an acting class is not uncommon, it's just for practice. To do the work. Yes, absolutely. I've never learned something from somebody in a class that I'm like, aha. Oh, really? No, I've never learned something in a class that I was like, don't already know. I'm probably very similar to you. I'm just a very instinctual actor. And you're probably very similar to Christian Bale. Yeah, I'd say that. Yeah, totally. No, in terms of Bale, if you don't know, Bale doesn't have any formal training. He's self-taught. But yeah, I've been in classes. It's just normally they just annoy me a lot of times. Many can be annoying. Many can be very self-serving. Obviously, they work for people. Obviously, some people need these classes. I'm not a class-style person in any form of my life, not just acting. I'm just, that's not how I like to learn. You know, I do acting classes because of repetition. You know, you can always, you know, get better. Like, I'll re-watch something I do and be like, oh, yeah, I'm clearly doing something I shouldn't be doing there. One of the best things about a class, and this is something because I have, I'm starting off with just a one day and a three week, which are the fundamentals. And after you've done that, you apply the fundamentals to scene work. That's it. So my objective is after those four weeks. It's a one day and a three week. You go into a three week scene work study where you as the actor can choose any monologue or any scene you want to do. And we, you come off book week one. We run it. I give you notes. Second week, we run it and give you notes. And by the third week, it should be stage or set ready because that's what the industry expects of you. You need to be ready to present this thing. And I don't see a lot of acting classes that really get you that quickly on your feet and have it all under your skin. Yeah, good. And that's, I want to, he's an amazing actor. One of the goats. And the people he referenced, obviously, are all the, some of them are our dose that was so honored to have interviewed. I would love to see her as a dose. Oh my goodness. But he, I've been told he doesn't like doing a lot of interviews, especially video. He does not like doing video interviews. I think, I think if he was, I think if he was told and guaranteed that our only objective is to talk craft, maybe nothing but the art form and to talk about theater process, which schools of training he's been exposed to because I promise there's some things he's been exposed to. We're predominantly exposed in acting process to all Western teachings. We're, it's Stanislavski, it's, he's Russian, but that's the Western modality for acting systems come from Stanislavski and then Strasberg and Adler and Udohagan and Meisner. And there's a list of contemporaries now, but there are a lot of contributors to the art form in India who have a completely different approach to the craft. And for me, as much as I know there's universal principles, I tell my class that I view my thing as, my approach as basically kind of like the constitution. I have principles that I think work, but it's open to amendments. It's a living document and I don't claim to know at all. You have objections, tell me, you may teach me something and I'll go, you know what, that's better. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, if there were movies that he referenced in there that we definitely should be watching, please let me know what they are. Let me know what they are. I would love to watch, obviously, everything he's ever done because he's such a great actor. Beautiful. Please let us know down below.