Kamal Ghorui
In recent times, many producers, directors, actors have opened up on actors have big entourages which leads to increasing the film’s budget. Not to mention, many directors and industry insiders have spoken about stars not being reachable. Now actor Nana Patekar along with director Prakash Jha have also spoken on this. The veteran actor will be seen in Prakash Jha’s next ‘Sankalp’ which also stars Sanjay Kapoor. Jha known for directing politically charged films such as ‘Jai Gangaajal’, ‘Satyagraha’ and ‘Raajneeti was asked why many of his recent projects have been released on streaming platforms instead of in theatres. In response, he explained that theatrical releases today heavily depend on big stars, but working with them has become increasingly complicated. Nana Patekar responded to him and said, “This is because earlier you could talk to a star directly, but now it is not possible. Today we have to go through multiple people to meet the star. To meet the star, you first have to meet 100 people. You have to give the star the script and then he/she will direct you whether you should make this film or not. Releasing it on OTT is easy compared to this.”Nana further remarked that the camaraderie that once existed between actors and directors seems to have faded with time. “Often, I ask Prakash if this actor called him, but then he tells me that the relationship between the actor and him is only limited to the film. Prakash tells me that only I and Amitabh Bachchan call him.” Patekar further said, “Kaam ke liye nahi phone karne ka. Bas aise hi puchne ke tu kaisa hai? Aaj subah maine Abhishek ko call kiya. Phone karke batayenge nahi ke yaad aa rahi hai toh pataa kaise chalega?” Jha went on to explain that the expanding network of managers and corporate structures around actors is a major reason for the rising entourage expenses. According to him, each layer adds to the overall cost. “All these layers who have been employed, the corporate, the management company, the creative company, managers, all these get a salary and which is why they have to show some work.”He added that these additional costs eventually fall on producers. Sharing an example, Jha said, “There is an actor these days who is accompanied by 27–28 people, a new actor in the industry, whose one film has worked, aspires to have this kind of a big entourage. Uska aspiration hi yehi hai ke mere kitne aadmi saath ayenge.”The discussion also touched upon the use of artificial intelligence in choosing film scripts. The interviewer mentioned an instance where an actor had reportedly put a script into ChatGPT and asked it to list reasons for and against doing the film. Reacting sharply to the anecdote, Nana put his funny, witty side to display and said, “Kyun tere kaan ke neeche do na lagaau? Iske dus reason bataa (We should ask AI about such people as to why we shouldn’t just slap them? Give 10 reasons?” Everyone burst into a laughter with this. Sanjay Kapoor who was also a part of the chat said that he prefers to directly co-ordinate with people, rather than always going through managers.
