Mumbai, Jun 18 : Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who has won accolades for his performance in the recent films ‘Kahani' and ‘Paan Singh Tomar', says he never expected to come this far.
“Earlier, people took me for one scene or so but now filmmakers have started taking me more seriously. Also, my responsibility towards my audience has increased. I have to now live up to the expectations and not take up films for the greed of money,” Nawazuddin Siddiqui told PTI.
“I have to be careful. I can feel the pressure. But I will continue to work hard. I feel I am getting my due now. We have a set of audience who really like our movies a lot. There is demand for our kind of cinema. Cinema is improving and there is experimentation,” he said.
From a small village in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh to the Bollywood, Siddiqui has had quite a journey.
“I never expected I would reach this far. I have always focused on my work irrespective of what the outcome would be. I never thought that I would be awarded best actor at the New York India Film Festival. But I have struggled a lot.”
He will be seen in Anurag Kashyap's soon-to-release ‘Gangs of Wasseypur'. After that he has as many as nine films lined up for the release, including Aamir Khan-starrer ‘Talaash', ‘Lunch Box' alongside Irrfan Khan, ‘Dekh Indian Circus', ‘Patang', ‘Liar Dice' and ‘Chittagong'. Nawazuddin feels the divide between the mainstream and the alternative cinema is going to exist.
“We have commercial cinema with films like ‘3 Idiots', ‘Rang De Basanti' which are interesting and you also get to learn something from them. My problem is with meaningless cinema.
There are filmmakers who make movies just to earn money. Cinema is not only to have a blast and enjoy watching it. If I want to just enjoy, I would rather go and watch a porn film,” he said.
The actor has returned after attending the Cannes Film Festival where three of his films, “Gangs Of Wasseypur” part one and two, and “Miss Lovely”, were screened.
“I feel blessed and lucky that three of my films were screened at Cannes. I don't think any other Indian actor has so far achieved this feat. I was surprised by the response,” he said.
