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Prosenjit Chatterjee, the numero uno of Bengali cinema, celebrates 40 years as the highest main man in the Bengali movie business. He has additionally unfold his wings to embody important work in Hindi cinema and OTT channels. He has just lately been nominated for the Best Actor Award by the Critics Guild of India for his magnificent efficiency as an alcoholic, depressed, retired writer in Atanu Ghosh’s Shesh Pata. This critic nailed him down for a detailed interview.

You are finishing 40 years in movies. How do you look again in your evolution in the movie business — primarily as an actor?

Over these years, I have handed by means of large evolution in cinema as an artwork, as a method, as an actor’s platform, and lots of different issues. The language of cinema has modified. We have moved from black-and-white to color; dubbing methods have modified; sound is now 70 mm and encompass sound; now we have transitioned from celluloid to digital…

I think about myself fairly lucky with generations throughout time and area. I, too, needed to maintain tempo with the adjustments. In alignment with that, performing has additionally modified a lot. The co-actors right now, comparable to Ritwick Chakraborty and Anirban Bhattacharya, each of whom I have labored with, are very gifted.

I must maintain the designscape of my performing in maintaining with these of my co-actors. I additionally watch every kind of movies, and all of this has been a great studying expertise.

What does performing imply to you?

When I started as an actor, I needed to battle alone. It was not at all times hunky dory, contemplating that my father [leading actor] Biswajit didn’t launch me.

Performances in cinema can be theatrical in these days, and I was usually in contrast with my father.

However, I have a look at performing holistically. Acting includes every part that goes into the character one is portraying — the costume, the make-up, the dialogue, the style, the type, the physique language, the relationships with the opposite characters, every part.

All these maintain altering on occasion, from movie to movie. I personally contain myself in every single one of these departments. This has helped me break free from my father’s type to create my very own. For me, performing shouldn’t be imitating.

Today, when I am portraying a character, I lend my very own feelings to the character however in other ways, in order that it’s convincing, not placed on.

In latest years, you’ve got very visibly diversified into completely different sorts of roles and movies, away from the singing and dancing romantic hero. Please inform us why.

It is the viewers that decides whether or not I am a star or an actor. I would like to be labelled an actor, first and final. But I can’t deny the stardom [that] my viewers has chosen to thrust upon me. I can’t deny my industrial star id.

Whatever I am right now is because of my industrial movies. It was a aware resolution on my half to do movies that will give me the chance of exploring my full potential as an actor.

I realised this absolutely when I performed Mahendra in Rituparno Ghosh’s Chokher Bali and everybody accepted me and recognised me as an actor. It was based mostly on a controversial Tagore basic; it was an off-mainstream movie. Mahendra was a advanced character and but everybody appreciated my efficiency.

Let us hear about probably the most difficult position of your profession — Lalon Phokir in Gautam Ghose’s Moner Manush.

You wouldn’t know about the ‘problem’ in case you don’t know about Lalon Phokir. Lalon Phokir is regarded the baul of bauls.

Bauls/Phokirs are wandering minstrels of Bengal who sing their very own songs in reward of the Lord. Lalon Phokir was in all probability born in 1774 in Nadia district, now in Kushtia, Bangladesh. He died in 1890. He lived an amazingly lengthy, productive and religious life, gathering disciples and composing tons of of songs.

Lalon Phokir rejected the division of society into communities, protesting [against] and satirising non secular fundamentalists of every kind.

It was a position that demanded full dedication for 5 to 6 months, with preparation earlier than the capturing. The solely supply now we have of his look is a sketch executed by [Rabindranath] Tagore’s brother Jyotirindranath Tagore on May 5, 1889, which was 17 months earlier than Lalon handed away.

Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai (2012) marked your return to Bollywood in a huge method. Let us hear about this.

This movie was a completely different cup of tea. It was an improvised adaptation of Costa-Gavras’ French movie Z (1969), a political thriller. It was based mostly on Greek writer Vassilis Vassilikos’ 1966 novel of the identical title. The novel is a fictionalised account of the assassination of Greek politician Lambrakis.

Shanghai has been an eye-opener for me as an actor and in addition [for] followers conversant in my Bengali movies. In the movie, I painting Dr Ahmadi, a standard human rights activist, whose affect in the small city the place he lives and works is larger than that of any political chief. He is killed for his activism, [and the murder is] designed to appear like an accident. After his assassination, issues start to occur. The whole movie revolves round this Ahmadi character.

Though many have learn the movie as a spine-chilling thriller, Shanghai reaches far past the floor, hit-and-chase recreation and killings.

I loved working in the movie not solely as a result of it was a Hindi movie, but in addition as a result of I needed the texture of working beneath the directorial wand of Dibakar and discovering myself amongst a host of Bollywood actors who’re extraordinarily gifted.

Which movies in the latest previous would you select personally and love to say as having added to your studying curve?

Look, I have given my viewers not lower than 300 hardcore industrial movies. My movie Ram-Lakshman ran for 50 weeks and the viewers requested, ‘What is coming subsequent?’ I now really feel that I owe it to the following era of actors to present them this place and I have to re-build my very own picture.

Over the previous 10-12 years, I have taken on movies the place the characters are usually not solely completely different from one another but in addition completely different from those I have executed earlier than in the musicals, the romances, the motion stuff, and so forth.

You had 22 releases in 2004. Don’t you are feeling that the burden of carrying the industrial Bengali movie business in your shoulders was too heavy?

Of course, the burden was very heavy at the moment. But I had no selection as a result of all of them have been hits. My producers and administrators have been ready for me to ship.

Later, fortunately, with the entry of a few younger males in the cinema circuit, like Dev, Jeet, Anirban Bhattacharya, Ritwick Chakraborty, I may reduce down on my assignments to focus on fewer roles.

I wish to do no less than two superb movies every 12 months that can take me into the pageant circuit. Yet, all mentioned and executed, I suppose I have achieved far more than I deserved.

As the numero uno in Bengali cinema for a number of many years, what do you are feeling chargeable for — to the movie business, to your producers and administrators, to your personal contribution as an actor?

I have given 40 years of my life to Bengali cinema. I really feel a sense of nice duty in direction of the Bengali movie business, which has given me a lot and I have given it again, too.

Many of my movies have been nice hits — Amar Sangee, Shashurbari Zindabad — and even considerably off-mainstream movies like Autograph and Baishey Srabon have been huge hits.

I have some variety of a duty to create scope, and even try to uncover the huge expertise that lies untapped in Bengali cinema right now. I additionally tackle Indian cinema as a problem.

There is that this story that you simply take care of every division of the movie you might be performing in. Is that proper?

Yes, that’s proper. I am simply made that method. I contain myself in the advertising and marketing and promotion of the movies I work in; the stylisation and mounting of the posters; the costume adjustments inside the movie; the music, the songs, the tune picturisation; every part. This leaves me with little or no leisure or time with my household. But that’s the method it has been.

Look at how the dimensions of manufacturing has modified. A Bengali movie would earlier be made at a whole funds of INR 5 to six lakh (about USD 7,300 at present conversion charges). Then, it rose to INR 16 lakh. And then, (*40*) Chakraborty’s Refugee, many years in the past, was made on a funds of INR 2 crore.

I really feel my duty doesn’t start and finish with performing. I am chargeable for how the movie fares on the field workplace, how I look in every movie since most movies are industrial. I may simply get typecast as the everyday masala hero. Today, particularly, it’s a fixed combat for me in opposition to getting stereotyped.

How have administrators like Kaushik Ganguly, Srijit Mukherji, Atanu Ghosh, Goutam Ghose, Budhhadeb Dasgupta, and Rituparno Ghosh formed you as an actor?

Today, I am not overly involved about my star picture. I don’t consider in the label “Superstar”, as a result of it’s a baggage that impacts an actor’s efficiency negatively.

Superstars match themselves into a sample, which turns into a lure they discover they can not get out of. About the administrators, I have labored with all of them. They have their distinct methods of treating cinema and I be taught from all of them.

Rituparno Ghosh made me perceive that I had one thing inside me that remained untapped; he helped me convey that out.

Goutam Ghose made me go by means of 9 months and one 12 months to internalise Lalon [Phokir] inside me earlier than we started to shoot.

Atanu Ghosh and Srijit Mukherji could make me do issues I have by no means executed earlier than. I go to them like a lump of clay and inform them to form me the way in which they need.

Kaushik Ganguly has given me not solely fairly uncommon roles, however has additionally pitted me in opposition to highly effective co-actors, which was a completely different problem.

You have been shortlisted for the Best Actor Award for Shesh Pata directed by Atanu Ghosh. Your feedback?

I have been nominated, not gained the award but. When Atanu narrated the story to me, my query to myself was ‘How will I do it?’ Balmiki was a very completely different cup of tea. He is a author however is affected by a big author’s block since his actress spouse’s lifeless physique was discovered in a area. He is very educated however he’s a failure and an incorrigible alcoholic, a loner and a social recluse.

I needed to work on the tonal high quality of my voice and needed to show a semi-bald pate. Atanu and I labored on a number of fashions with which to mix this single character who has created an different world and lives inside it — alone. I beloved it.

How are you experimenting with Bengali cinema as a entire?

I want to break down the slim partitions of regional Bengali cinema and lengthen its borders to succeed in nationwide cinema. This might be achieved by making Hindi movies in Bengal; or, by bringing Hindi administrators to Bengali cinema.

Or, [by] asking Bengali administrators to make movies in Hindi inside and with out Bengal. I know that is doable and I can see this dream being realised in one other 5 years.

What about Bollywood?

I have by no means tried to interrupt into Bollywood. Bombay administrators know their job and they’re fairly conversant in my work, too. I do not need any challenges to face and I don’t have anything to show.

If assignments come to me, as they’ve, [that is because] the administrators have already seen my work. Even [for] the OTT platform I have just lately damaged into in Hindi [with] Jubilee and Scoop, the administrators had seen my movies.

I am fairly optimistic about the OTT platform, as a result of it’s a new variety of leisure, and this is essential for any actor.