Shyam Benegal who began his career as a director with no prior experience in cinema, talent-spotted a number of artistes and technicians in the 70’s, many of them leading lights of the ‘art film’ movement. The list includes Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Pankaj Kapoor, Govind Nihalani, Shama Zaidi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
Nishant was the film that introduced Naseeruddin Shah to the screen. A Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student, he came recommended by Girish Karnad, the institute director, who had seen him on stage in Edward Albee’s Zoo Story. Shah was leading an agitation at FTII at the time. According to Karnad, the reason for the strike was “stupid” but Shah was “passionate”.
Sent from Pune to meet the filmmaker, he landed up at Benegal’s Pedder Road apartment early in the morning dressed in cowboy boots and a corduroy denim jacket; he looked nothing like the dhoti-kurta clad villager he was to portray. Fortunately, Benegal still thought he was “more or less” right for the part.
Shah recalls in his memoir that the launch made him the envy of his batch, many of whom spread the canard that he had landed the role for “selling out” the cause. The demand that acting students should be cast in all diploma films made by batchmates in other courses was never met.
Smita Patil was similarly discovered by the director who saw her for the first time on television. She was reading the news in Marathi. “Her presence was riveting and attractive,” he recalled. Despite lack of professional training and an absence of ambition to be an actress, she was cast in a series of prominent roles by Benegal. “Her ability to take on different personas was a gift…she could do both glamorous roles and plain parts,” he once said.
Not all of Benegal’s finds were automatic choices. An FTII graduate from the previous batch, Shabana Azmi was not the first pick for Ankur. He had approached Waheeda Rehman, Sharda, Aparna Sen, and Anju Mahendru, all of whom turned it down. Then he heard of Shabana from an assistant. “When I saw her, I knew immediately that she was correct for the part although she was dressed in model-like clothes,” he recalled in an interview. He ended up offering her two roles, one in Ankur, the other in Nishant.
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