Anurag remarks why filmmakers are good actors

CHENNAI: Anurag Kashyap believes filmmakers generally don’t make for bad actors, as they know “what not to do” when they face the camera.

Kashyap is playing a baddie, a builder-politician, in Haddi, directed by Akshat Ajay Sharma and starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub. The film is currently streaming on ZEE5.

“When I am directing, at the end of the day, I feel, ‘I had just started and the day is already over?’ But when I work like an actor, I feel, ‘Just 30 minutes have passed?’ Sometimes, there is four hours of wait between shots. Time flies when you direct but you are too aware of time when you are acting,” the filmmaker said.

Kashyap, who has acted in films such as Akira, Daas Dev, Kuttey and Tamil film Imaikkaa Nodigal, said filmmakers understand the medium well and that can be a bonus when acting.

“They might not be extraordinary, but they understand the medium very well, which wins half the battle. If they don’t know what to do, they, at least, know what not to do,” he added.

Haddi is a crime-drama with Siddiqui in the role of a transgender.

As transgender stories are finding representation in mainstream, Kashyap is happy that there is a “conversation”. “It will be a slow process, which is also necessary because when things happen overnight for validation, then they don’t change.

Now, the next step for them is to tell their own stories whether they are actors, directors or writers,” the filmmaker said, adding that a lot of hard work is still needed in that direction.

According to the filmmaker, villains always have an interesting life. “If you look at it, till they live, they have the most fun and then they die,” he joked.

Kashyap, meanwhile, is happy to see his film Kennedy travel around international film festivals after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The film, he said, is something that he has not done before.