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Adil Hussain: The least likeable part of a film for me is promoting it, but I understand now how the market works
Actor Adil Hussain believes that if he has done his job, which is acting in a project, why does he have to promote it so extensively.
Actor Adil Hussain has been in the film business for more than two decades now, and is well versed with how everything works. But even after the kind of experience has had — both in India and abroad — there’s one thing that took him time get accustomed to. And that was promoting a film to create buzz.
“For me, it ends as soon as I’ve finished shooting the project, I don’t even think about it. The least likeable part or phase of film involvement for me is promotions,” he confesses.
The actor remembers his first brush with it. “I think I have done acting, why do you have to promote it? I understand how the market works now. In fact, when I did my first Bengali film Iti Srikanta (2004) with Soha Ali Khan and Reema Sen, I was called for the promotions. I was like ‘why do you have to go in front of these people?’ I hid, my director used to find me and ask ‘Adil, what’s your problem?’,” he recalls.
Hussain reveals how he dealt with that situation.
“All I could say to them was, ‘I’ve done my bit, done with the role, why do you have to do this nonsense!’ But I slowly got comfortable with the idea of speaking about the film.”
Today, film promotions have spawned an entire industry, with specific budgets allocated to create buzz around the project.
Agreeing to call it a “necessary evil”, the 57-year-old adds, “For me, me entire satisfaction comes when I am cast in a good script, and a director. When I see the film by myself, I have the opportunity to stop, rewind and look at the faults, and I then especially show it to my acting teachers, who I completely trust will be brutally honest with me. That is the exercise I do. Rest of the appreciation, bad or good, I don’t take them so seriously.”
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