LAHORE, April 29: Naseeruddin Shah just doesn’t want to talk films, which have played a dominant role in his international fame as an actor par excellence.

Why do you have to harp on questions about films? Why don’t you talk about my theatre for which I’m here? he shot back in response to a question.

Hardly five minutes into the conversation on Saturday at the Alhamra Arts Centre, where he was scheduled to stage one of his most successful plays Ismat Aapa Key Naam later in the evening, he walked off in a huff. He wouldn’t talk further no matter how much you tried to convince him.

Shah has been to Pakistan once before to act in a yet-to-be-released Pakistani film, Khuda ke liye, but it is for the first time that he has brought his play to Pakistan. He had long been looking for such an opportunity.

Directed by Shah himself, the play is based on three short stories —- Mughal bachcha, Chhui mui and Ghar wali — by Ismat Chughtai. The cast includes his wife Ratna Pathak and daughter Heeba Shah. The internationally acclaimed actor has mostly done English plays (by Shaw as well as Shakespeare). This he said was owing to a dearth of original natak in India, while addressing a press conference on Friday. Ismat Aapa key naam remains his most successful experiment.

Born in July, 1950, in Delhi, India, Shah developed love for acting as a schoolboy and graduated from the National School of Drama in 1973, to enrol in the Film and Television Institute of India, the same year. He was first noticed by the noted film director Shyam Benegal who cast him in his film, Nishant, in 1975. This was the beginning of what later came to be known as the New Wave Cinema in India.

Along with Shabana Azmi, Smita Patel, Anupam Kher and Om Puri, Shah played lead roles in most realistic or art films made during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Although he has worked simultaneously both in films and theatre, he is known to his admirers in Pakistan through his early art movies, which became available here towards the end of the 1970s and early 1980s with the arrival of VCRs and VCPs. Apart from Nishant, his famous movies include Sparsh, Paar, Manthan, Albert Pinto ko ghussa kyun aata hai, Mohan Joshi hazir hon, Mandi, Umrao Jan, Ijazat, Jane bhi do yaro, Pestonji, etc.

Shah has not only worked in art movies, he has also played lead roles in the mainstream cinema, and done a few typical Bollywood dance and song sequences.

The third film of my career was a commercial flick, Sonaina , in which I played a romantic role and sang songs. I have worked simultaneously for both kinds of movies, he told Dawn during the brief conversation, before walking off in a huff.

I’m tired of repeating it time and again that I neither quit the New Wave Cinema nor crossed over to the commercial films, he said, responding to another question. He sought to refute the impression that he had ever dubbed the experiment of the New Wave Cinema as trash.

What I have said was that the makers of those films had failed to grow up. They were repeating the same movies again and again. They actually had no commitment with the movies they were making. It was under compulsion that they were producing such movies because those were low-budget projects. What I had said has proved true after 10 years. I still do the (realistic or art) films. But where are those film-makers? What are they doing? What kind of films are they producing now? he asked.

Although he has said many a time in his interviews that he could not stand the mainstream (Indian) cinema, he defended his decision to also be part of the purely commercial ventures like Mohra, Hero Hira Lal, and Asambhav.

Why should I not do these (commercial) films if they (producers) are generous with payments? After all, artistic satisfaction is not the only satisfaction; financial satisfaction is also important.

However, Shah seems now to have decided not to work for the mainstream, commercial cinema anymore, and devote all his talents to theatre. I’m no longer working for mainstream films. I did one film, Krish, last year. But no more of them now, said Shah, who has two projects — a Hindi language French production Valley of Flowers and Parzania — lined up for release. He has recently directed a Hindi film, Yun hota to kya hota.

Aside from Indian films, he has also worked for some international projects, like the Monsoon Wedding and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a film which received extremely bad reviews).

Shah is also the recipient of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri, besides bagging the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival (for Paar). He has also won the India government’s National Award for best actor (for Sparsh), and several others.

Shah, who is considered, and rightly so, an icon of the Indian cinema, has lost all hope regarding the existing players of Bollywood. He did not agree with a suggestion that some Indian film-makers were producing ‘different’ kinds of films these days.

Nothing has changed. It’s the same as it was in 1935. Even the story has not changed. The content remains the same, only the form has altered a bit as now they shoot movies in America. I have no hope. They (film-makers) blame the audience (for the trash they produce). If they cared even a little bit about the audience, they would have carried out research as to what the viewers actually want. Their only purpose is to make money.

Nevertheless, he was hopeful that the Bombay formula would not be enough for the people of the next generation. He said he felt that films needed to be made to communicate with, to say something to the audience. (Offering some) entertainment to the audience is one objective of films. But making money should not be the sole purpose of producing a film.

But then Shah himself doesn’t want to turn down a ‘trash’ film project because he gets paid generously.