Actor Saptrishi Ghosh says that while he loves working with the newer crop of actors, he adds that they are quite impatient. The actor says that there are many things you learn with age and experience, and patience is one of them.
“It’s true that the younger generation, the new crop of actors who have come, are exposed to a lot of things. They know a lot of things. But then, see, you can never discount experience and maturity with just knowledge. You can know a lot of things, but do you have the wisdom? See, it’s a form of creative art. It’s a performing art. And here, you need a lot of maturity to handle roles. I’m not saying that there are no new actors who have that understanding, but there are very few. I would say two out of 100, maybe just 2%. Otherwise, what I have seen is that the new crop of actors come from respectable families, they are well educated, go to a decent acting school, go to a decent dance school. A lot of them know how to do action sequences also. And they are very clear as to what they want from life, in the industry. So all that is great. But finally, when it comes to acting, I mean, there is a slight amount of recklessness in them and I feel the ‘Thehraav’ is missing and the ‘Thehraav’, that quintessential calmness, that’s going to come only at a certain age, with a certain experience. They want to shine like diamonds, for sure. But it depends on how many will know how to do that, and how many will survive. So that’s a different story altogether. But yes, I have never felt any discomfort working with young actors, which I most often do. I’m blessed and fortunate that I get to act with the newcomers. I also get to act with new actors also, I get to act with young actors. So, I try to listen to them. I try to see how they’re pursuing their craft,” he says.
Meanwhile, the actor says that while OTT is doing well, it can never replace Bollywood. “OTT is part of Bollywood and it can never compete with Bollywood. OTT has given a little bit or maybe a fair bit of competition to the so-called commercial Hindi cinema. But cinema’s 70mm magic will come back again. So see, they’re like, two cousins. I don’t think it’ll hamper or dampen the theatre collections or Bollywood future. Bollywood is a huge generic term, and OTT is part of Bollywood, In fact, I feel the film industry, or the film business, has lost a little bit of its charm, mainly because of the lack of good content. You get good content and see how people will go to watch films in theatres,” he says.
Ask him what kind of work he would like to be part of, and he says, “I would like to do anything and everything. I’m hungry. I’m very, very hungry for good roles now. The screen time doesn’t matter. Of course, I mean, it shouldn’t be blink and miss which I won’t do at all, to be honest. But I’m hungry for all types of roles now, especially negative and grey shades, and positive also. So, anything and everything… any role which has got meat in it, which is different and I’m so lucky that my other colleagues, so-called seniors like Manoj Bajpayee, Kumud Mishra, and Pankaj Tripathi, the senior colleagues see where they are no less than any other Khans. So they are no less than any of the so-called Bollywood stars, and so-called Hindi film stars, they are stars in their own right. So that’s the genre I want to get in. I feel, if I’m an actor, I would become a star or not, that God and my fate will decide and the public will decide. But yes, I’m an actor. And as an actor, I’m open to any and every role.”
