Prakash Jha: “Bollywood Actors Don’t Know Acting!”

It happens quite often in the starry, wide-eyed, and often dramatic world of Bollywood that the film directors, despite working in the industry (the Indian film industry) for almost their entire lives, do not necessarily reserve many great views for the actors and actresses.

In a world where rave reviews and at times, over the top reactions to movies both float around freely, perhaps we tend to forget that criticism too is very evident and on other occasions, omnipresent.

Perhaps that is why, none other than Prakash Jha, of all film directors, has come out in a manner that you’d call “all guns blazing” in recent comments made about the Bollywood film actors.

And before we jump into greater detail to view just what Prakash Jha, one of the famous and widely directed filmmakers, around had to say about the general nature of the Bollywood actors, perhaps it’s the right time to question the following:

Were the actors of the past or the bygone era (as it is often called) less dramatic and therefore, more punctual and professional without bringing into play too many conditions that we so often hear about nowadays? Or could it be that all such theories are merely bogus and that the Bollywood actors of the contemporary era are avid professionals who care less about any hangups and simply, therefore, go about their task?

What would you say to that?

Anyhow, the man famous for giving us all and in particular, Indian cinema revered films and deeply moving projects such as Apharan, Rajneeti, Gangaajal, Mrityudand, and many more films has spoken. But guess what? What Prakash Jha had to offer on the current line up of Bollywood actors isn’t something that they would necessarily like or even agree to.

The following inputs were taken from a film story published on the Hindustan Times:

I was disgusted with actors working here in India. They don’t know what acting is about. No actor has asked me questions about shoot days, shoot timings, locations, action sequences, and more. And that’s the difference between Hollywood actors and Bollywood ones. The actors there attend workshops and keep on practicing and improving their art.”

I would quietly go and enrol myself as a student. And that’s how I understood an actor’s language. I have performed Shakespeare and other plays in classes, which gave me a lot of confidence.”

Having said that, it’s not that most of his (Prakash Jha) work has eluded controversy; as a matter of fact, many of his releases even before hitting the big screen have courted drama, to which the veteran film director had the following to say:

“It always happens with all my work, before it gets released, someone will go to court, governments will ban my films and people are concerned. But once the film releases, everything is quiet and that is going to happen this time too.”

But having said all the above, what’s a tad bit surprising in some measure is that whilst he directed clear criticism at the current lineup of Bollywood actor, it is not clear as to whom was the critical appraisal directed, in particular?

As a matter of fact, which actor or actors ruffled Prakash Jha’s feathers in perhaps not the finest way for such comments to have surfaced. We don’t know any of that- do we?