After a certain point of time, life's practicality hits you. So I got into theatre, did stage plays and worked along with Naseeruddin Shah and Nana Patekar, people who are committed to the craft part.
I've told Kamal Haasan, Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar, I just want to touch you. They are the gods of acting. When people call me God, I say, no, I'm still an angel or saint of acting. I still have a long way to go.
Asim has done English theatre with Naseeruddin Shah and his group, Hindi theatre with Makarand Deshpande, and Marathi theatre with me. He is a hardworking actor - I am not saying this just because he is my son but as an actor and spectator.
Many people say that theatre has no money, but it has been the stepping stone for the best film actors of our times like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, etc.
People claim that no good actors came out of FTII after Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi. What they don't know is that the acting course was closed for 26 years and reopened only in 2004.
My two favorite actors are Naseeruddin Shah and Farooq Sheikh. I am happy that I got to work with them.
I know Nana Patekar; he is indecent.
I wanted to go to drama school, but when I got the part in 'Falling,' I got an agent, so it seemed a good idea to work. I always did a lot of singing and dancing, so I am glad it worked out that way. I would like to study stage acting at some point, though.
As an actor, I am always in one character or the other and get very little time to be Nana Patekar. So whenever I can, I love to be alone and by myself. That way, I get time to think and introspect.
There's a great charm in theatre; I enjoyed doing it for twelve years and did lots of plays. At this chapter of my life, I am a cinema actor, and I would like to continue to be so, and at some point I would return to the theatre.
Remember, acting is not a business of glamour. It is science, craft and an art. Read about acting; don't do it for the sake of fun. Actors such as Paresh Rawal and Naseeruddin Shah are great examples; they are surviving only because they have read well.
Everyone knows about Nana Patekar that he has always been disrespectful towards women.
One of the first plays I ever did was at the Royal Court Theatre in London; it was the first play I got after drama school.
I was crazy into performing when I was younger. I was obsessed with the craft of acting, and theatre, and stage. You know the term 'theatre geek?' I am the extreme theatre geek.
People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tricky, actually.
Then, in 2000, John Reid, Elton John's former manager, asked me to audition for the stage version of The Graduate he was producing. So I worked on it, got the part, and after three weeks' rehearsal I was on stage!
Then I left school at 16 and worked in Perth Repertory Theatre, which was quite nearby where I lived. And I worked there for about six or seven months, as part of the stage crew.