Time flies by when he is directing but acting is also fun, says Anurag Kashyap, who believes directors generally don't make for bad actors as they know "what not to do" when they face the camera.
Kashyap is playing a baddie, a builder-politician, in "Haddi", directed by Akshat Ajay Sharma and starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub. The film is currently streaming on Zee5.
"When you are working, you have fun. (But) when I am directing, at the end of the day, I feel, 'I had just started and the day is already over?' But when I work like an actor, I feel, 'Just 30 minutes have passed?' "Sometimes there is four hours of wait between shots. Time flies when you direct but you are too aware of time when you are acting,” the filmmaker told PTI in an interview.
Kashyap, who has acted in films such as “Akira”, “Daas Dev”, “Ghoomketu”, Tamil film “Imaikkaa Nodigal” and “Kuttey”, said filmmakers understand the medium well and that can be a bonus when acting.
"Generally, directors don't make bad actors. They might not be extraordinary, but they understand the medium very well, which wins half the battle. If they don't know what to do, they, at least, know what not to do,” he added.
Which is why he loves "exploiting" his director friends for roles in his movies, be it Hansal Mehta, Karan Johar, Tigmanshu Dhulia or others.
"I have exploited everyone from Hansal Mehta to Vasan Bala. I haven't left anyone,” the 50-year-old said.
Asked who makes for a good actor among the directors' community, Kashyap named Rajkumar Santoshi and his performance in Santosh Sivan's film “Halo”.
"He (Santoshi) is a terrific actor. Satish Kaushik ji was a very good actor. Tigmanshu Dhulia ('Gangs of Wasseypur') is an amazing actor. I was very happy with Karan Johar. He had done good work in ‘Bombay Velvet’. I think he was brilliant in that film.”
“Haddi” marks the debut of Sharma, a creative assistant director on Kashyap’s “Manmarziyaan”. It is a crime drama with Siddiqui in the role of a transgender.
Sushmita Sen-starrer “Taali”, “Made In Heaven” and now “Haddi”, transgender stories are finding representation in mainstream and Kashyap is happy that there is a “conversation”.
“It will be a slow process, which is also necessary because when things happen overnight for validation, then they don’t change. It is a gradual process and people are now more confident to come out and be themselves on screen.
“Now, the next step for them is to tell their own stories whether they are actors, directors or writers,” the filmmaker said, adding that a lot of hard work is still needed in that direction.
The story may be set around the transgender community, but “Haddi”, he said, is not a tale of acceptance.
"It is their world and, in that world, you see different sides... There is conflict and there is somebody who they call the most dangerous animal in the world, which is mankind, who takes advantage of them,” the filmmaker said.
Asked about playing a villain and a politician, the filmmaker said, “In today’s world, who is the villain worldwide? And also, who is having the most fun?”
According to the filmmaker, villains always have an interesting life.
“If you look at it, till they live, they have the most fun and then they die. Everybody dies, so you want to have fun and die or you want to live in boredom and then die?” he joked.
While "Haddi" is an acting venture, Kashyap said he intends to return to the OTT space with a series soon.
His last long-format venture as a director was 2018's "Sacred Games” with Vikramaditya Motwane, which was Netflix's first series in India, and became an instant hit.
Motwane recently explored the series format again with acclaimed Prime Video series "Jubilee", but Kashyap has mostly stayed away from the space despite many of his movies releasing digitally.
“It is my writing phase and I am acting in the middle of it. Once the year ends, the direction phase will begin and I will be unstoppable,” he quipped.
Kashyap, meanwhile, is happy to see his film “Kennedy” travel around international film festivals after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The film, he said, is something that he has not done before.
“But it is not for me to say, it is for you guys (audiences) to tell,” he added.
Kashyap is perhaps the most popular figure among the new-age directors and has a fandom across ages for his movies such as "Black Friday", "Gulaal", "Gangs of Wasseypur I &II ", "Dev D", "Ugly", "Mukkabaaz" and others.
The director said he is aware of how his fans expect him to keep making certain kinds of films but he “does not care”. He, however, understands why they are stuck with certain films from his filmography.
“They all have seen those films between the ages of 16 to 18. So those who have seen ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, they are stuck there, and those who have seen ‘Ugly’, they are stuck there.
“Actually, it is about your most impressionable age. When cinema starts impacting you, whatever film you see, you get stuck there. I have been stuck with ‘Parinda’. But I have stopped thinking about it (fans’ expectations),” he said.
