Interview: Sajid Khan
By: Arora Rai
Some directors find pleasure in making cameos in their films. In Hollywood, the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan – as painful as it is to mention both filmmakers in the same sentence – have found themselves on both sides of the camera. Across the waters in Bollywood, filmmakers Subhash Ghai, Anurag Kashyap and Aamir Khan have switched back and forth in their respective films.
But when it comes to Sajid Khan, he adamantly holds his ground when it comes to choosing sides – when he is in front of the camera, the red light must be off.
“I don’t think I’m a good actor,” Sajid, 38, told reporters last week in preparation of the release of his latest film, Housefull. “Hats off to people who can write their own film, direct it, act in it and then the film also comes out a hit.”
Even worse for Sajid, the filmmaker is so into making the production move forward, his health takes too much of a hit for him to properly play any on-screen roles.
“When I start working on my film, I get into it. My weight starts increasing, I smoke a lot, and I say ‘no’ to all other projects, because I just don’t direct a film — I make a film,” the director emphatically told reporters earlier this week. “For that matter, probably I’ll never act in my own film.”
He is probably thrilled to not have any on-screen roles in Housefull, a movie that Sajid claims to be one of his craziest ever.
“Housefull is a mad-cap, though not a mindless, comedy,” he explained. “The plot is extremely delicate, and the viewers have to pay proper attention to it or they will lose the link.”
Perhaps Sajid firmly believes that, had he landed in front of the camera, he probably would have substantially altered the plot’s delicate balance. Lucky for Sajid, he left the film’s sensitivities to his cast, which includes Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Arjun Rampal, Deepika Padukone, Boman Irani, Lara Dutta and Jiah Khan.
Hopefully audiences will not need Sajid’s on-screen shenanigans to be rolling on the floor laughing, as Housefull, which was produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, hits screens worldwide this weekend and is now playing.
