Why does comedy in India make Ratna Pathak Shah ‘cringe’? How did comedy ‘save her’? She reveals that and more in this candid chat with Brut.
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00:00I don't want to be an actor only until I'm pretty and young.
00:06I want to be an actor as long as I can, hopefully till the day I die.
00:16Hello, this is Ratna Pathak Shah for Brute.
00:26I got very little work when I was much younger.
00:29Udhar Udhar on television was my first real paying job and it was fantastic because it was a comedy.
00:35I had never imagined that I would be a comedy actor.
00:38I really had no preparation for it but Anand Mahindra cast me for it.
00:44I loved the idea of doing this slightly dumb but wacky girl.
00:51I loved the idea of the show so I immediately said yes to it and I find that
00:57it was the smartest thing I ever did.
00:59It saved me from becoming a bore as an actor.
01:01Comedy saved me, comedy really did.
01:11In India, comedy is such a short-changed genre.
01:16So little work is done in this business.
01:19I mean, it's embarrassing how badly we do comedy.
01:23Considering that we are a bunch of people in this country who are always ready to respond.
01:40I'm embarrassed when people say that your show, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, is what we like so much.
01:46It's the best comedy.
01:47I say, Sarabhai 2006.
02:03We shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back that we did one thing in 2006.
02:08We really don't know how to write comedy in India and we have been very cheap on that front.
02:17The kind of stuff that I see on television today which goes under the name of comedy,
02:22it makes me cringe.
02:23I have no problem with the topic you choose.
02:42One of the big things that hasn't changed
02:46is the desire to put the box office collections above everything else.
02:51I'm afraid we haven't got past that as yet.
02:54And it is a pity.
02:55I mean, I know it is important because film and now OTT and television, they are expensive media.
03:02But if that becomes your prime function, if that becomes your prime motivator,
03:17the scripting has become significantly better.
03:20People are spending more time and energy and money, I think, working on the script.
03:26I have also worked at times when the script would arrive on the day of the
03:30shoot and sometimes just five minutes before the shot was to be taken, etc.
03:36Now, finally, I'm getting the kind of work that I wanted to do.
03:40And unfortunately, I'm the wrong color and the wrong age now.
03:44All the same, it has meant that I got a chance to do
03:48a lot of interesting characters in the last four or five years.
04:15I hope so.
04:17You know, I think it's about bloody time.
04:20Excuse my language.
04:22But it is about time that we got out of this habit of, I'm so embarrassed, I'm so nervous.
04:27What are you nervous about?
04:29You're doing your job, I'm doing mine.
04:32Why should we start with this business?
04:35I'm going to be wrong, you know, but you are always right.
04:37No, I want people to be able to stand up for what they say and what they believe in.
04:42There's a way of doing it.
04:44You don't have to be rude.
04:45But you've got to be determined.
04:48And you've got to know your job.
04:50Acting is not easy.
04:52Good acting is not easy, let us put it like that.
04:55The film, that is the real one job it can do.
04:57It can't change the world.
04:59It certainly cannot make you a better person or anything like that.
05:02But it can record the time that it's in.
05:05And