“I once came home from school and mom was mumbling under her breath, reading a script. I asked her, what she was doing, and she said ‘one needs to spend some me time with the character. When one does that, the character opens up and speaks to you’,” says actor Amruta Subhash, while recalling a memory from her childhood. It has now become her go-to mantra when prepping for a role. We are sitting with the Bombay Begum actress and her theatre veteran mother Jyoti, who you will remember as the grandmother in Gully Boy, at their Kala Nagar home. Subhash’s Filmfare trophies and press cuttings adorn the study table.

The mother-daughter are in sync. Subhash recently put up a video on social media, celebrating her mother’s 75th birthday, expressing awe at her “waterfall” energy. “My mother was at NSD [National School of Drama], and one of her batchmates was Naseeruddin Shah, who was also my teacher. Later, I was course mates with Heeba [Shah’s daughter]. We would always share notes about how our parents were so accomplished, and what would we need to do to match up. Even now, when Naseer sir meets me he says, ‘Ya, I know you got an award for that show, but then are you doing theatre?’.”

That question perhaps did the trick. Subash, now along with working on two OTT shows, is returning to theatre with Firse Honeymoon. The play, written and directed by her husband Sandesh Kulkarni, who played Ganesh Gaitonde’s father in Sacred Games, is a relationship story. “It’s every couple’s story... What happens when the spark burns out? It’s about a couple revisiting the scene of their honeymoon 12 years later.”

Growing up, theatre was all around her. Thanks to her mum, she was surrounded by theatrewalas like Satyadev Dubey and Shriram Lagoo. Jyoti recalls, “At NSD, we did folk plays from all over the country, but we were also exposed to German, French and  Russian plays. Artistes from those countries would come down and work with us. I remember acting with Naseer in Eugène Ionesco’s The Lesson.” 

The septuagenarian has just finished shooting for a small part in Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki, which stars Shah Rukh Khan. “My memory doesn’t serve me well, so doing larger parts is harder for me,” she confesses. Amruta adds, “When mom met SRK, she told him that she had met his father, who used to run the canteen at NSD. He leaned, and lowered his forehead so that she could kiss him.”

The mother and daughter seem content with where they are in life, and it reflects in their energy and beaming faces. “At 75, I have realized that nothing is constant. But some things remain the same. As far as art is concerned, or human expression is concerned, or valuation of each expression is concerned, that stays the same. So is our idea of good and bad. One is always striving to be better, and that struggle happens with actors all the time.”

Amruta admits that there is lot to learn from her mother. She remembers attending the rehearsals of Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq, where Jyoti played the evil stepmother. “I used to think, ‘at home, mum is so sweet, making bakhri for us, and on stage she is screaming’. What happens to her? I knew then that I wanted to learn everything about this process of being able to transform oneself.”

But the most important lesson that Amruta says she has learnt from her mother is to remember that the core of an artiste is about performing. “It’s not about seeking validation from how many people are watching the show. My mum comes from the tradition of Rashtriya Seva Dal [a grassroots-front organisation of the Indian National Congress]. They inculcated some values in my mum, which she inculcated in me. Everything is not about money, everything is not about being famous—the core is what you are getting out of it, and finding out what makes you happy. Thanks to my mother, and Naseer sir’s prodding, I keep going back to theatre, which gives me that happiness.”

When you are facing one of the best talents in the country it's easy to get intimidated. Especially since Naseeruddin Shah's reputation of being brutally honest precedes him. And, he doesn't disappoint. The actor doesn't mince words - be it about his family, films, theatre in India, or the recent outrage against Pakistani artistes working in our movies. We catch up with Naseer as he prepares to stage Riding Madly Off In All Directions, which premieres at the Prithvi Theatre Festival presented by Bombay Times. The fest will be held from November 3 to 14. Excerpts...

You are staging a play with your entire family (wife Ratna Pathak Shah and children Heeba, Imaad and Vivaan) for the first time. What made you think this was the right script?
I wanted to do a play with my family, and have loved Stephen Leacock's stories for long. I don't know what makes me choose a script; it's instinctive. Something stirred within me when I read those scripts, and I felt that they could make for a stimulating theatre evening; something that's not just entertaining, but also food for thought.

Do the dynamics change when you work with your family?
All my children have the potential to be very good actors, but they resist my attempts to educate them. I don't yell at them as much as I do at other actors whom I love, too. Any other student would go home and forget about my yelling, but if I yell at my children, it can seep into our personal lives. You can call it ego or consideration for treating my family members differently. Having said that, I am not less demanding. I push them, as I want them to do well. Over the years, I have also learnt that yelling isn't the way to handle actors. I got yelled at as a student; my teachers would get absolutely hysterical. I too started doing that and I regret it greatly. I have perhaps done more damage by yelling and it has taken me long to realise the fact.

Is theatre more educating than cinema?
I have great doubts about either theatre or cinema being effective mediums of education. Theatre can give you an insight into something, but it can't alter your perception of life. That will happen only to those who desire to delve deeper into this mystery called life. There are zillions of PhDs and MAs who talk the most illiterate stuff and zillions of trained actors who don't know the first thing about their job. So, it's all about self-education.

Do your children have the same approach towards theatre as your wife and you?
I don't think theatre means as much to them. I have to accept my children for whatever they are. Their approach might prove to be valid at some point and mine, a little too traditional. They take life more lightly than we did and that's because they didn't face the same struggles. But then, who am I to wish that they should face struggles? What the hell have I worked so hard for? I aspired to give them everything that I didn't have. Why should I wish that they go through the same nightmares that I went through? In fact, I envy them. I don't doubt their integrity or intelligence. I may be critical of their approach, but who knows where it may lead them.

But doesn't struggle enhance the actor in you?
My children have a different kind of struggle - to prove themselves, which is no less than my struggle to earn my bread. They have already got a head start on the work front. I had nobody in the city when I came here. They have known a lot of people since they were born.

You are selective about your roles in Bollywood but more active in theatre. Why?
I owe it to this medium, as it has given me a lot. Everything I have learnt about life, literature, poetry, speech and aesthetics has been through theatre. I was not a good student in school. Studying mathematics was torture and I always cursed it, as I would always score zero. Forget theatre, mathematics is taught so badly. No teacher ever has tried to tell us about the magic of numbers. I realised it when I was doing tables with my son.

Does your inclination towards theatre also stem from the fact that there aren't enough roles for actors like you in Bollywood?
We don't have those kind of writers in cinema. In theatre, I can pick anything from the last 5,000 years. I can do a William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Great writing transcends time.

And what about actors?
(Laughs) I can count on half the fingers of one hand the number of conversations I have had with other actors. Frankly, I am yet to meet anyone in the film industry with whom I can talk about acting. You can talk about parties, films, girls and anecdotes, but not acting.

Is theatre today better than it was in the 80s or 90s?
It's an illusion. The kind of theatre the corporates are patronising are efforts in the wrong direction, including the attempt to bring Broadway here. We don't need Broadway; we have got Hindi cinema. Broadway serves the same purpose in the West as Hindi commercial cinema does here. It's got jaadugari; it's part discotheque, part magic show and part music concert. It's not theatre and that's what these corporates are encouraging. They call it spectacular stuff, which is nonsense in my view. Secondly, it's not presented with consummate excellence, which you see in a Broadway production of the West, because they have been doing it for 100 years now. We are new at it and hence, clumsy. I neither believe in that kind of theatre nor do I watch it.

You are brutally honest, which is an antithesis of an actor...
Yes, I suppose. As a director too, I was brutally honest. I love my actors and want them to do well. Sometimes to get them to do well, you have to torture them.

Because of that, you often get mired in controversies, the latest being the Rajesh Khanna incident. Do you regret having said that?
I don't regret what I say, as I have always said what I meant. The media tends to exaggerate, but I have got used to it. So, I am inclined to speak a little less to the media, because I don't want what I say to be sensationalised. I don't want to sound like Donald Trump (laughs), but the fact is, sometimes the media tries to make their headlines sensational. I had said the same thing about Mr Khanna earlier, no one got upset then. So, I think it's something to do with the atmosphere prevailing today.

Your Pakistani short film Jeewan Hathi is yet to release. What do you think of it, considering the ongoing tension between the two countries?
I don't think it will ever be screened here. The deal will fall through, as the channel, which produced the film, has stopped telecasting Pakistani shows. They had planned an Indo-Pak collaboration with five Indian and Pakistani filmmakers' short films, which were to be shown together.