Actor Shashank Arora is known to speak his mind uninhibitedly and he did the same with a recent Instagram post where he said, “Worked hard on my acting for no reason because apparently iss desh mein khaali photos khichaani hoti hain.”
Prod him on actors today focusing more on their appearances and he says, “There are a lot of people in Mumbai who are working hard, and there are a lot of people who are more interested in how they look, rather than how their craft is. And that’s the section I refer to as pretend artistes. An actor’s job is not to look good, but to make you feel something. They just pretend to love acting, whereas all that they actually want is fame. These are the people who don’t love cinema, but the circus and validation around cinema. They actually do a disservice to the whole community by not actually focusing on their craft.”
The 35-year-old also addresses the growing influence of PR machinery in today’s time. He says, “The PR machinery keeps evolving, sometimes its malls, sometimes its airport. It’s part and parcel of the job. It isn’t something you can put down, it’s up in the air now. It’s natural for the voices in the business to try and tell you to go out of your way to sell yourself, but the pressure is as much as you let yourself feel. The machinery will continuously try to sell you as that’s how they function, it’s up to you how much you partake.”
However, Shashank doesn’t believe in adhering to such norms and doesn’t mind if it costs him work. “I don’t really care what people think about me. There is a certain kind of work that won’t come your way but someone like (filmmaker) Dibakar Banerjee won’t care. You might lose out on a couple of brand endorsements, but a good director who wants to cast you won’t look at your airport looks. As an actor, the day I start thinking about such stuff, mujh se acting nahin hogi,” he insists.
Even though the actor himself is an outsider, the actor feels that a lot of times now the term is used as an excuse by actors who don’t want to put in their all in their work. “Some people do use the fact of being an outsider as a crutch. There would be some people who would fake the problem and there would be some who would really be in the problem. But you’ll notice the latter will always keep their head down and work. They don’t complain as they know it won’t fix the problem but will just make it worse for the next person. If I fight to make it a better place and prove myself as an actor, that will help the next newcomer much more. There are a ton of actors using it as a crutch and a ton of actors telling the truth. It’s all a mixed bag,” Shashank says.
The actor’s next film Superboys of Malegaon is set to premiere at Toronto International Film Festival next month, and last year, he was seen in the second season of the web series Made In Heaven. The first two seasons of the show had a four-year gap between them, will it be the same for the third? “I can’t even say for sure if there will be a third season. If it happens, I am all game for it,” he ends.