While Ratna Pathak Shah has been acting for approximately 40 years, she has witnessed various stars and performers come to rule the Indian cinema business. The fate of an actor in the movies may depend on a variety of variables, but Ratna claimed recently in a discussion that she has seen the careers of some “excellent performers” be “adversely damaged by this entourage business.”
Ratna Pathak Shah added that moving with an entourage makes one “even more self focused and self absorbed” and asked “What does it do to your head?” The Sarabhai vs Sarabhai actor remarked that she has seen several actors travel with caterers, gym equipment but despite all of that, their performances and even the box office results are not up to the mark. “Cooks, workout team, all your gym equipment is going? And then what do you do? Look at your performance. Is that a valuable pay off? How much money is that film earning after all the gym equipment and the caterers and chefs? Did the film make the money that was put into it? Look at that first,” she told Film Companion.
Ratna recalled an anecdote where she saw an actor on a plane who wouldn’t even hold their coffee cup. “I have seen actors on plane won’t even ask for a cup of coffee. The coffee is brought by an assistant, assistant opens the cup, actor takes sip, hands it back to assistant. What are you? A 3-month-old child? That you can’t even hold a cup? This level of dependence?”
Ratna called this entire practice “silly” and said that it has “always been very silly” and will continue to be the same.
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