Naseeruddin Shah feels film promotions serve no purpose

Mumbai, Aug 29
Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah, whose streaming show ‘IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack’ released on Thursday, feels that film promotions have become redundant and serve no purpose in amping up the curiosity of the audience. The actor recently sat down for a roundtable conversation with his co-actors from the show, Vijay Varma, Arvind Swami, Pankaj Kapur and Manoj Pahwa, and the director of the show, Anubhav Sinha.

When Anubhav asked him why he dislikes promotions, Naseeruddin Shah said, “I feel it makes no difference. Mere khayal se actors ko shauk hota hai promotions ka aur apna thobda dikhaane k television pe. (I feel the actors love doing the promotions and to show their faces on screen as it helps them grab the eyeballs)”.

The actor further mentioned that the audience “smells out” what they want to see. He then went on to recollect how his generation would wait for films for over 2 years.

He shared, “I remember when I was in school or college, Dilip Kumar’s films used to get released in a span of 2 years. But, we used to plan in advance that we are going to watch this film. Nothing would dissuade me from seeing it”.

“The audience decides what they want to see, and us saying that ‘We have worked really hard on this film’ makes no difference to them. You have worked hard but that’s your job as an actor, why are you heaping praise on yourself?”, he added.

‘IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack’ is based on the hijack of Indian Airlines Flight 814, an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 en route from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India, in December 1999. The flight was hijacked and was flown to several locations before landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan which was then under the control of Taliban.

The show streams on Netflix.