Showing posts with label Jimmy Sheirgill son. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jimmy Sheirgill son. Show all posts
For me, getting a peaceful night's sleep means true success-Jimmy Sheirgill
7:57 AM
Mohar basu (BOMBAY TIMES; July 10, 2016)
In an industry where actors
battle it out to create a new crore club with every film, men like Jimmy
Sheirgill are rare. For him, acting is just a job and success to him is
having a good night's sleep after a long day. The actor is dismissive
about being insecure. Ask him about it and he says, “Bhai, insecure kya
hona hai.“ He is temperamental but not complacent; nonchalant but not
arrogant. Ahead of his upcoming film Madaari, Jimmy talks to BT about
his love for heartland stories and why he will always be a Bollywood
actor before a Punjabi superstar.
How does it feel when your favourite actor, Irrfan, offers you a big role in his first production?
It is humbling. I am so happy that he and director Nishikant Kamat thought of me for this role. Though I share only a few scenes with Irrfan, working together after Haasil was wonderful. All of us did this film for the sheer love of the subject. Madaari is a socio-political, edge-of-the-seat drama with a strong undercurrent of human emotions. Often, we want to change the way things function in our country but we don't know how to do it. A movie cannot offer a foolproof solution for such complexities, but I assure you it will be gratifying to see such issues being addressed in the most real way possible in this film.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced?
It was a huge challenge to understand my character's psyche. He isn't an impulsive cop, like the one I had played in A Wednesday. He is mature, meticulous and has a lot of experience. So, I had to approach this role differently. Even my look in the film was created to give this character some depth.
How do you juggle between Punjabi cinema and Bollywood?
It doesn't take much effort. I do only one Punjabi film every year and act in more Bollywood films. I will always remain a Bollywood actor at heart. I divide my time very carefully. Out of 365 days, I devote 40 days for shooting and 20 days for promoting my Punjabi films. It gets difficult to allot more time than that without letting my work suffer. You cannot take up a character and not perform it with sincerity. Recently, I did a Punjabi film in which I had to play a 25-year-old guy and then gradually age till 70. I had to lose weight to look young. Such characters take time and it is better to space yourself out well to do justice to them.
You started off as a romantic hero and then the industry stereotyped you in a slew of lover boy roles. Since you've played a cop many times, do you feel you are being stereotyped again?
I never pick up a film unless I feel strongly about it. I'm drawn towards scripts but more towards characters. Cop roles are intriguing and gritty but you can always make the effort to play them differently. When I have to repeat a character, it is twice the hard work. You lose your ability to surprise yourself and the audience after you've played a similar role before. You have to give him an edge to make him shine. I would never want to be stereotyped. After a few romantic films in Bollywood, I was only getting those kind of roles. I felt I was being pigeonholed. I still try to maintain a variety in my roles.
Do you miss romancing on screen?
I still essay such roles in my Punjabi films once in a while. In Bollywood, I am offered fewer romantic films that touch my heart. When I find such a story here, I will definitely take it up. When I started off, it was a conscious decision to begin with mush. Eventually, I discovered my love for intense characters with films like Yahaan and Haasil. I would love to do light-hearted films but such movies are never offered to me.
Do you have a strong liking for stories set in the heartland?
Since I am a Punjabi, such parts suit me. I have seen the desi rustic life closely, so I connect well to such characters. I feel that people like watching me in hard-hitting roles more.
As an actor, do you face any kind of insecurity?
(Laughs) Insecure kya hona hai. I just go out there do my job and don't think about it too much. How can giving a few lines to my colleagues or taking a few of theirs make or break my career?
Is that why you are comfortable playing supporting roles?
The choice has always been mine a male lead versus a strong character, in which the latter wins. The length of a role doesn't matter as long as it can make an impact. I had a 12-minute role in Bang Bang, but the response was tremendous. When you do such a role, you don't expect anything in return but if you are earnest, your efforts will be appreciated.
What does success mean to you?
For me, getting a peaceful night's sleep means true success. Everyone works hard. And so do I. But for me, the most important thing is going home and spending time with my wife, Priyanka, and son, Veer. What is life if you don't have loved ones to pamper.
How does it feel when your favourite actor, Irrfan, offers you a big role in his first production?
It is humbling. I am so happy that he and director Nishikant Kamat thought of me for this role. Though I share only a few scenes with Irrfan, working together after Haasil was wonderful. All of us did this film for the sheer love of the subject. Madaari is a socio-political, edge-of-the-seat drama with a strong undercurrent of human emotions. Often, we want to change the way things function in our country but we don't know how to do it. A movie cannot offer a foolproof solution for such complexities, but I assure you it will be gratifying to see such issues being addressed in the most real way possible in this film.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced?
It was a huge challenge to understand my character's psyche. He isn't an impulsive cop, like the one I had played in A Wednesday. He is mature, meticulous and has a lot of experience. So, I had to approach this role differently. Even my look in the film was created to give this character some depth.
How do you juggle between Punjabi cinema and Bollywood?
It doesn't take much effort. I do only one Punjabi film every year and act in more Bollywood films. I will always remain a Bollywood actor at heart. I divide my time very carefully. Out of 365 days, I devote 40 days for shooting and 20 days for promoting my Punjabi films. It gets difficult to allot more time than that without letting my work suffer. You cannot take up a character and not perform it with sincerity. Recently, I did a Punjabi film in which I had to play a 25-year-old guy and then gradually age till 70. I had to lose weight to look young. Such characters take time and it is better to space yourself out well to do justice to them.
You started off as a romantic hero and then the industry stereotyped you in a slew of lover boy roles. Since you've played a cop many times, do you feel you are being stereotyped again?
I never pick up a film unless I feel strongly about it. I'm drawn towards scripts but more towards characters. Cop roles are intriguing and gritty but you can always make the effort to play them differently. When I have to repeat a character, it is twice the hard work. You lose your ability to surprise yourself and the audience after you've played a similar role before. You have to give him an edge to make him shine. I would never want to be stereotyped. After a few romantic films in Bollywood, I was only getting those kind of roles. I felt I was being pigeonholed. I still try to maintain a variety in my roles.
Do you miss romancing on screen?
I still essay such roles in my Punjabi films once in a while. In Bollywood, I am offered fewer romantic films that touch my heart. When I find such a story here, I will definitely take it up. When I started off, it was a conscious decision to begin with mush. Eventually, I discovered my love for intense characters with films like Yahaan and Haasil. I would love to do light-hearted films but such movies are never offered to me.
Do you have a strong liking for stories set in the heartland?
Since I am a Punjabi, such parts suit me. I have seen the desi rustic life closely, so I connect well to such characters. I feel that people like watching me in hard-hitting roles more.
As an actor, do you face any kind of insecurity?
(Laughs) Insecure kya hona hai. I just go out there do my job and don't think about it too much. How can giving a few lines to my colleagues or taking a few of theirs make or break my career?
Is that why you are comfortable playing supporting roles?
The choice has always been mine a male lead versus a strong character, in which the latter wins. The length of a role doesn't matter as long as it can make an impact. I had a 12-minute role in Bang Bang, but the response was tremendous. When you do such a role, you don't expect anything in return but if you are earnest, your efforts will be appreciated.
What does success mean to you?
For me, getting a peaceful night's sleep means true success. Everyone works hard. And so do I. But for me, the most important thing is going home and spending time with my wife, Priyanka, and son, Veer. What is life if you don't have loved ones to pamper.
Aditya Chopra is a terror when it comes to work-Jimmy Sheirgill
7:52 AM
Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; June 12, 2014)
Jimmy Sheirgill, 43, is emotional, lazy and moody. He is either comfortable working with directors he is close to, be it Tigmanshu Dhulia, Raju Hirani, Shoojit Sircar or Neeraj Pandey, or being in his cocoon at home with his wife Priyanka and son Veer. While he looks up to Irrfan as an actor, he idolises Gulzar sahab as a director. Over an hour-long conversation ahead of his upcoming film Fugly, he speaks to Bombay Times about the pampering of Gulzar sahab, the strictness of Aditya Chopra and his connection with the famous Amrita Shergill. Excerpts.
How did you become an actor?
We are sardars and I come from a big joint family from Sardarnagar in UP. My family owned distilleries and agricultural land. We also have a house in Patiala in Punjab. I completed my B.Com from Patiala and wanted to do an MBA. I have this cousin Suminder who is my bua's son and is 10 years older who lives in Delhi. As destiny would have it, his father, who was very close to me and my father, was murdered all of a sudden and my cousin felt all alone. He spoke to my father and wanted me to be with him for a while in Delhi and so, I moved to Delhi for a while. Right from my childhood, I have always looked up to him and living with him got both of us even more attached to each other. He owned this store where he sold collections of the top designers in Delhi and thus, in some way, he was well connected to both the designers as well as wellknown people who would buy from his store. He convinced my father how he thought I should get into movies. I would laugh it out as I never watched Hindi films apart from Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt's films as I was a big fan of both of them. Other than my dad Satyajit Singh Shergill, who does painting as his hobby and his bua who was the famous Amrita Shergill, I had no connection with the world of art. My cousin kept brainwashing me and I started watching Hindi movies. I decided to come to Mumbai. Prior to coming to Mumbai, I was always known only by my family. What I most liked about Mumbai was that I could start my life on my own here and I decided to join Roshan Taneja sahab for his acting classes and was there for a year-and-a-half. My family thought that I wouldn't last for even 15 days, given the change in my lifestyle, but I did. Of course, my family supported me throughout, both emotionally and financially. My father suggested that I come back to Delhi after every 20 days to spend 10 days with them before I went back and that really helped me for a lot of years. In 1994, I came to know that Gulzar sahab was directing Maachis and via someone I knew, I went to meet him hoping to assist him. My classes were getting over and I knew that if I went back, no one would let me come back. Gulzar sahab started asking me questions. He said, `I am asking you questions in Hindi and you are replying in English. Don't you know Hindi?' I didn't know what was in his mind. I started replying him in Hindi and he liked my Hindi. He asked me why I wanted to assist him and I said, `Because I have been told that it takes years to get a break as an actor.' And he said, `Kaun bolta hain?' He gave me the script of Maachis and I got my first role, even though a small role, in a Gulzar sahab film.
Did you ever wear a Sikh turban?
I wore a turban till I was about 18, till it became really difficult for me to manage washing and wearing one in a hostel. Of course, it was many other things too, but I asked my dad casually on one of his trips to my hostel and decided to cut my hair one day. Not just my parents, but my entire family did not talk to me for a year-and-a-half properly after that except for my one mama who had also cut his hair before me.
You have worked with Gulzar sahab and Adi Chopra. Talk about your experience of working with them?
Maachis and Mohabbatein were my first films and will remain special. Whatever I have learnt and however I carry myself is because of Gulzar sahab and later because of Adi (Chopra) and Yash (Chopra) uncle because somewhere I think, your initial schooling is what is responsible for how you conduct yourself. Even though I had a small role in Maachis, I was clear that it was a huge opportunity to just work with Gulzar sahab. I miss his two orange candies that he would give you after a good shot along with a big smile on his face. I got them a couple of times from him and I wish I could have preserved them. I learnt a lot from him. He was particular about not putting your hands in your pocket. Now, when I look back, I realise that he was guiding me, that I should learn to use my hands and do something with them as against just putting them in my pocket. He said, `There can be no worse time for an actor than just sitting at home and not doing anything. So, make sure you are always working. That is what will pull you through anything. As a creative person, you will see good times and bad times, but make sure you are working. Also, never let the fate of anything become your fate. If a film is a big hit, don't consider yourself to be indispensable and if a film is a flop, don't let it affect you. Let people know you for you are and not by your hits and your flops. They should know you by your work.'
After working with Gulzar sahab, I tend to compare every director with him. The amount he would pamper you as an actor, no other director can. If you were perennially late, he might be slightly strict and would let you know that that was not right, but otherwise, he would really pamper you. He would tell me and Chandrachur Singh, `I hope you are partying na?' And we would be always surprised. Today, it's the opposite. The director will tell you, `Go to sleep. You need to get up in the morning.' But he was so cool. Adi, in contrast, was very strict. He is a terror when it comes to work. You can't stand in there and crack a joke. I used to be really scared of him at that time and he is a nononsense kind of person.
An actor you really look up to?
Irrfan is my favourite actor right from the time of Haasil. He is natural and yet has his own style. Akshaye Khanna had a lot of conviction in his acting. I would want to see much more of him.
Who do you love the most in the world?
I am a very emotional person. I can cry easily. If I am shooting outside and if my wife just sends me a card from my 10-year-old son Veer, I will start crying. Apart from Veer, the person I love the most is my wife Priyanka. I met her through a friend at a wedding, post Maachis in Delhi. She was working with her father, who was in the construction and interiors business. We saw each other for five years before we got married. When she came to Mumbai for the first time, I invited her to Kamalistan Studio where I was shooting. She came, but was thoroughly bored. Post that, she has never come. Even if she comes, she will come for one minute to drop my son and then she leaves. She is somebody who will tell me about my work without a bias. She is a perfect housewife. I don't have to bother about anything at home, even though I am very particular about everything. She knows what I like and what I don't. She is my best friend and will remove my doubts immediately when I have them.I am quite moody. Now she has got used to it but earlier, there was always a shell around me where even when I would come home, I could be engrossed in reading a script or thinking about work. Now, she has got used to me and knows when something is bothering me and when I am lighter in the head. I often joke with her that between the both of us, if one of us has to be considered dominating, it would have to be her. I am quite lazy and enjoy going back home after work just to be around in my secure environment with my wife and son there. It has taken a lot for me to build my reputation from being the chocolate boy in Mohabbatein to where I am as an actor today.
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