Saurabh Shukla wears many hats in the Indian film industry, and he is one such actor who is an inspiration for many aspiring actors. His recent visit to Calcutta during the 29th Kolkata International Film Festival attests to this fact as he addressed a packed Sisir Mancha during his acting masterclass. “I am overwhelmed to see the audience. Everybody loves talking but listening is the tough part” — were Shukla’s opening lines that received a round of applause. On the sidelines of the masterclass, Shukla spoke to t2 about acting and more.

You started your acting career with theatre and moved to films gradually. How much has theatre helped your film career?

It really helps. Whatever you do in life, every experience keeps adding and that is who you become finally. When I started from theatre, it was a great medium. It is not economically expensive, so the money doesn’t drive theatre. But in movies you are supposed to perform... and experimentation has a lesser chance. The money is involved there. There are exceptions of course. Theatre gives you a lot of opportunities to explore yourself and move forward. Theatre really helped me because whatever I loved in my initial phase was present in theatre.

Theatre is intrinsic to this city’s culture and you attended KIFF for an acting workshop. Do you recommend aspiring actors to start their learning from theatre or acting institutes?

It is very simple. You have to start somewhere and you have to start learning. Acting is an art and it is not something one is born with. To form an idea about what you have to do, you have to learn. How will that learning happen? There are two ways. Either you go to an institute and there will be a curriculum, teachers and a library, or you just start it. The theatre is available and approachable. Tell them you want to learn it. And in that way, every production becomes your library.

What got you back to theatre despite a successful film career?

There is no ‘going back to’ and ‘despite’. Film is a different career and theatre is different. None is above the other. It is like oranges and apples. Oranges are oranges and apples are apples. You have one life, so why not do everything that you want to do? It is like having biryani and cholar daal. It is varied and keeps adding to your repertoire.

What is that one essential skill that you ask young actors to stress on, to make the most of their acting potential?

Truth. There is nothing else. Just be true to yourself. Be truthful to the moment. If you can do that, you are there.

Is there anything that you still regularly practice as an actor as a commitment to your craft?

Not physically. Like practising voice and other things… of course, I have done the physical exercises. But the biggest exercise in acting is how you see the world. That in itself is an exercise. You don’t do it like an exercise, you accept, reject, and understand, and this is part of acting. It might not seem like you are doing something but you are.

Do you think the diversification of platforms has made it a lot easier for actors of today’s generation as compared to earlier generations or has this convenience of options affected the effort in honing their skills?

Diversity in anything in life is always welcome. It is always a positive thing. It is great that there are different platforms. Storytelling has evolved over a significant time. First, there was only storytelling. Like literally. Then came story writing. Then there were two forms — storytelling and story writing. Then came theatre, which is telling the story not just in words but through other things like characters and sets. In cinema, it is the same art but a different medium and then there was television. Now we have OTT. When there is a new platform, the art remains the same but the platform creates the conversation. Art in itself keeps growing, keeps evolving and different platforms have made it possible. But it can constantly evolve and I don’t think there’s any hindrance of any kind. Tomorrow we might have… not many have thought about it but some of us have thought… moving camera or the one that revolves. So, tomorrow you might have a film that is 360 degree. The audience is following a story straight and then suddenly on the right, there is a gunshot in an alley, they turn and decide not to follow the incident there and want to follow this part. So, they keep going straight. It will be a completely different platform and a new evolved form of cinema. I am very excited about it.

What is acting to you after so many years in the industry and why is it important to you?

This is what I do. To me, acting is at times bread and butter, at times great joy and at times a feeling that I have moved a step ahead in my life from where I was yesterday. Today I am somewhere else. Not in terms of success, but in terms of understanding. It is a part of what I do. I know how to act and that’s what I do.

Has winning the National Award impacted your craft in any way?

It must have. I am sure. If there’s an incident in your life, on a daily basis it does affect what you do. But if you are asking whether the National Award changed my thought process, then no. The thought process took me to a place where I got the recognition which is the National Award and it is not vice versa. It is not that you have a National Award, so you become an artiste. You are an artiste, so you won the National Award.

You are a part of Kaushik Ganguly’s upcoming Hindi film Manohar Pandey. What made you want to work with him?

Kaushik Ganguly is a brilliant filmmaker... that is one of the reasons. I have great respect for his earlier work and when he contacted me, I was more than happy. Then of course there are other actors like Raghubir Yadav and Supriya Pathak. These are the actors that I respect and I really wanted to work with them. I also liked the script. Whatever it tries to say… it is a realistic story. The acting style is realistic and not farcical or stylised. I liked it so I did it.

Many aspiring actors look up to you. Is there any actor whom you look up to?

First of all, there are two things — being in awe of somebody and looking up to somebody. When you are an artiste, you are never in awe of anybody. If you are in awe of somebody, your journey will become shorter because you will only reach the point where the other person is… because that is the pinnacle of your imagination at that point in time. But I look up to people and that changes from time to time. If there is any other artiste who does anything that inspires me, I tell myself, ‘Ohh, I did not but they could do it’, and I look up to that person then. It keeps changing. Doesn’t have a fixed name.

Whenever someone lands in Calcutta, we never fail to ask them about the food! We know that Bengali food is something very close to your heart. Is there anything you love in particular?

Whenever I come to Calcutta, people ask me this! But they forget that my mother was a Bengali and my wife is a Bengali. Bengali food is something I have eaten since childhood. Bengali food is my home food and has nothing to do with visiting Calcutta!