Veteran filmmaker Imtiaz Ali has cast Naseeruddin Shah as a 95-year-old Sikh man in Main Vaapas Aaunga to offer something refreshingly new. Because Shah has never played a turbaned Sardar on screen, Imtiaz wanted to tap into his charm and provide a finely calibrated performance that avoids typical veteran-actor stereotypes.
Naseeruddin plays an elderly partition survivor dealing with an intense unfinished love story, with Vedang Raina cast as his younger self in flashbacks. Imtiaz deliberately avoided de-aging Shah, stating he wanted the youth to look youthful and the mature characters to look authentically old.
The emotional weight of playing a bedridden patient exhausted Shah, making the shoot highly draining.Live Directing: In a bold directing choice, Imtiaz would give real-time instructions to Shah while the cameras were rolling. Imtiaz later joked that he took so many liberties with the legendary actor, Shah “should have slapped me.
News Edit KV Raman
