Nawazuddin Siddiqui: NSD gives us what Bollywood people don’t have

Nawazuddin Siddiqui returned to his alma mater, National School of Drama in Delhi during its annual cultural festival, Bharat Rang Mahotsav, and interacted with the audiences.

Coming back to his alma mater, Nawazuddin Siddiqui feels National School of Drama (NSD) gave him everything that people in Bollywood don’t have.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui was recently seen in Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees.

Speaking here at NSD during Bharat Rang Mahotsav, the college’s annual theatre festival, Siddiqui said, “The confidence that helped me to keep fighting came from the fact that NSD gives you what Bollywood people don’t have.”

“When I left NSD I was full of confidence that I will show the world, but then I realised it was not that easy. However, after failing for a couple of times instead of taking the blame on myself I would ask myself ‘who are these people that are taking my audition, are they even capable of understanding my acting?’,” he added.

After leaving the drama school in 1996, the 42-year-old actor first appeared on the screen with a one scene role in movie Sarfarosh in 1999.

For the next ten years he got similar roles till Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur paved a stronger path for him. The actor said that Kashyap’s films keep his connection with theatre alive. “Anurag Kashyap’s style of work is similar to how we do it here at NSD. It is majorly based on improvisation. He gives you a situation and at times we don’t even have dialogues. As an actor I get to try what I learned here by working in Anurag Kashyap’s films,” Siddiqui said.

While audience asked the actor for serious professional advice there were also some informal candid questions resulting in guffaws from the stage and the lawn alike.

In response to a question whether his sense of romance is like to how it was shown in the movie Gangs Of Wasseypur, Siddqui shared a similar incident from his college days. “When I was in second year I asked a junior to go to a garden with me. We were sitting and then I put my hand on her hand to which she sternly asked me ‘what was I doing’. I simply said ‘touching your hand’ and she said ‘this is illegal’. I forgot everything after that and started imagining myself in jail.”

Waman Kendre, the Director of NSD, also asked Siddiqui if he would like to come to NSD for a few plays in the future to which he said, “I want to do theatre again, but I am shooting continuously for two years but after that I promise to come back.”