Sudhir Mishra is one of the most revered filmmaker in the country right now. He had teamed up with actor Om Puri quite a few times. In fact, Puri also won the National Award for his performance in 1991 film, Dharavi. Now, in a recent interview, Sudhir Mishra has opened up about shooting with Om Puri, and revealed how he would ‘lose it’ if he was asked to shoot beyond midnight.
Talking in Unfiltered By Samdish , Sudhir Mishra said, “I worked with Om Puri when I made my third film, I was a young man. I had worked with him as an assistant in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and then in 1991 I worked with him (as a director). He was a big guy. He was so graceful, generous. None of these guys were easy. When one says, ‘he was graceful’, it is almost as if they were boring people. Like everyone who talks about Irrfan these days’ sounds like he was a boring person. He was not. Those were wonderful, ambitious, complicated times. There was a need for money, good work. It was difficult.”
He also revealed how Om Puri hated working at night and said, “Puri sahab was a tough guy often. He would lose it if you shot after 12 in the night. ‘Kya hai yaar? Chal… leave it,’ he would say. He would be angry but would say, ‘Chal ghar pe, I’ll feed you bhindi.’ My films are mostly set in night, so he would get angry!”
Mishra also added, “You could tell anything to him, he was graceful, technically perfect. You could provoke him the last moment and it would be there in the shot. If I’d say, ‘Puri sahab, ek aisa khayal aaya hai’, he would do that on screen. If there was no tripod and you’d request him to spread his legs and stand and then give close ups, he would do that. He was so technically (sound).”
Sudhir Mishtra had last helmed Serious Men starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
