Legendary Bengali actor Victor Banerjee turned 78 today. The veteran artiste, who has also worked in Hindi films, looked back at his career and life in an interview with us.
Victor, what does it feel to be a year older?
It is just reminder that your time to go is approaching. I don’t like to be reminded of my birthdays. But I can’t stop friends like you.
Why don’t we see you in Hindi films?
Ask the Hindi makers. The Hindi films are just fly-by-nights things that happened in my career. I got Bhoot because I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I was sitting at the poolside when the cameraman and scriptwriter spotted me. They recommended me to Ram Gopal Varma. And he agreed instantaneously. That’s largely because of my performance in Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug. Ram Gopal Varma remembered my performance in every detail.
Some of your earlier Hindi films like Doosri Dulhan turned out to be disappointing
That’s because Javed Akhtar, who was involved with Shabana Azmi, took over the script and re-wrote it.
The thing about you is, you don’t seem to be acting at all
Thank you. But I won’t admit that I don’t act (laughs). I never see my own films. I never watch my own films. I feel I’d begin to see things in my performances which I’d like and start using them in other films. This is a pitfall that I see in the performances of many stars. They know what the audience likes, and they try to fit it into their performances. I don’t want to go into that, and kill the limited acting options that I’ve. David Lean brought me to his editing room to watch some of my scenes in A Passage To India. I was greatly embarrassed. The only film of mine which I was forced to watch under very odd circumstances was Satyajit Ray’s Ghaire Baire. And that too only because I felt the dubbing required revision in two places.
Well in one place when I was shown eating with huge chomp-chomps. In another place I was shown climbing stairs with a clomp-clomp. They just didn’t jell with my character. Mr Ray re-did those scenes.
David Lean’s A Passage To India remains the high-water mark of your career
Oh absolutely. Lean had auditioned scores of actors in London for Dr Aziz’z role. Since he had a Bengali wife at one time, he wrote to friends in Kolkata asking who can play Dr Aziz. Would you believe it, my name featured in everyone’s list of options? Lean knew I was in Ray’s Ghaire Baire. The film had poems by Rabindranath Tagore which Lean had recited in school. I think Ray and Tagore did the trick. The minute I walked in he said Dr Aziz was mine.
How do you manage to do those Bengali potboilers after Lean and Ray?
After me, you might have to interview Hrithik Roshan. I too have to do both kinds of cinema. Even in the most unalloyed potboiler, I try to get into the psyche of the stupid man who wrote it. When I’m clued into what he’s trying to say, I try to reinterpret his thoughts. And because I do it genuinely, the audiences accept me. I’ve been very fortunate in the potboilers. A lot of times I gently try to tell my co-stars to lower their scale of performance. There’s this thing about untrained actors. They feel the subtler performer will always win. So they get softer with me.
So are you still a Bengali matinee idol?
No. I’m as much finished with Bengali films as they’re with me. They’ve moved on to other actors. I’m ready for a new phase in my career.
We see so little of you
You’d have seen me in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas. Let me tell you the story. I’ve a little home in Mussoorie. My cellphone doesn’t work there. Besides my family, no one calls me there. I was at a temple in Mussoorie when my cellphone rang, and I was offered Devdas. I said I’d be delighted to be part of the film, that I’d do anything, even take shots of rural Bengal for the film. They actually offered me the role of Devdas’ father. I’d have liked doing that. After that no one called back.
You think so? That’s the subtext I used for my performance. But that wasn’t the subtext I was given. Actually the role came to me neither from the director Anant Balani nor producer Subhash Ghai, but writer Sachin Bhowmick, who came to me. But Subhash, not you, the other one, was not happy with my performance.
Why????
After the film was complete, he said he wanted my character to be like James Bond. Like someone whom all the girls would fall madly in love with. I wish he had told me that earlier. I only wish Joggers Park had gone more into subtleties. It would have got me more noticed. When I had walked into Subhash Ghai’s production house, every wall had declarations about the importance of script. But Joggers’ Park had no script! During its making, we saw my co-star Perizaad Zorabian’s starrer Bollywood Calling, where the joke was that the actor-hero was given a script after the shooting was over. I jokingly wondered if I was going to be given a script after the shooting of Joggers’ Park was over. I wish filmmakers would respect us actors more. We’d be able to do slightly better jobs.
Any more offers from Bollywood?
Well, if Bhansali can be told I’m interested in acting and not photographing his film, he may offer me something again…He knows his job so well. I was thrown out of Devdas for no reason. After Bhoot, I got two more offers to play psychiatrists. After Joggers’ Park, I was looking forward to being asked to play a judge again. I don’t think Mumbai accepts my performances as well as you do. Even in Bhoot, I wasn’t part of the main publicity. But when Ramu had a preview show a fortnight before release, I got a barrage of SMSs from him saying everyone liked my performance. He seemed more surprised than me.
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