TLI Staff
New Delhi: Neena Gupta who’s shining bright in her second innings in Bollywood with awards and accolades pouring in considers the lockdown time one of the best phases of her life, primarily because she could spend a lot of time with family. She talked at length on No Filter Neha Season 5.
“To tell you frankly, this has been the best four and a half months in my life. Beautiful place, lovely house, my own house so comfortable, staff, driver, no restriction, sit out, walk out because it’s a gated thing and everybody inside is already quarantined for 4 months. So we could meet them, we could eat with them, I could walk with them, so I found a new family and this is the first time, me and my husband stayed together for like 4 months. Otherwise, he lives in Delhi, I live in Bombay. So, this was the first time I enjoyed being with somebody in the same house kind of thing, although he was busy, I was busy. So this has been the most amazing time of my life and I’m coming back here, I have to get used to it, it’ll take me sometime but it was the most beautiful time,” says the Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron actress.
However, Neena had to learn sign language to interact with her husband who keeps busy with conference calls.
“I’ve learned sign language because he is always busy on his conference calls. The adjustment took some time but it was very interesting that I let him be, he kind of tried to let me be but he had no alternative. In any case he didn’t have time to interfere in my life so it was fine but whenever he got time then he interfered which I decided I will not interfere. It was very interesting, it was very calming,” he said.
The veteran actress is quite popular in social media but she doesn’t post just for the sake of it.
“Dekho kai baar na I don’t post for a longer period of times. I post whenever something hits me, whenever I see something happening really. It is happening with me or around me, I want to post. Like the sign language, I posted because I was laughing at it because I was doing it every day. So everything I post, like I got the sweaters made from the local girls, so I put that. So it is all genuine and I don’t post for the sake of posting. I post because I want to say something and what I’m saying is actually the truth which has happened to me and which is genuine and I think that’s why maybe people like it. Because like I say such things which we all women go through, so suddenly if my husband says something to me like that and I say ‘Shit aare yaar, yeh aise kyu bol raha he. Accha mein batati hu. Main sabko bata dungi’. It is like that,” she says.
Did she learn anything about Instagram from Masaba?
“No, the matter I do, I don’t consult. Sometimes, initially even now I make a mistake of posting like I will post something wrong. I get a message from Masaba immediately, ‘Mom, you’ve done it wrong’, then I tell her to set it right. Then she sets it right,” she says.
Neenaji feels strongly about housewives and had even written a script based on their lives.
“So, once I had written a script, I don’t know why I never made it. I had written a script for short film that how at a month end when it’s salary time, a housewife makes this ticket window kind of a thing. She has collected all the bills. Some bills are for making her child do homework, some bills are for bargaining with the vegetable seller. Like this she hands over the entire’s months expenses in form of bills to her husband expecting a salary for herself. That is what I wanted to make once,” she added.
Neena Gupta notes that there has been a difference in the kind of roles being offered to actors today compared to yesteryears. Now all the actors irrespective of their age are getting meaty roles.
“It’s changed very recently, like past 2 years, only. For everyone, there are women, actresses, my age group are also getting some very interesting work. Otherwise it was very bad, after 40 also it was bad. There was nothing. And right now I feel that everybody, not just me is getting something, it’s not like the younger people obviously. It is started a little bit and I have even this lockdown, 2-3 very good scripts I have read, very nice scripts. I have said yes to 2-3 things, I have said yes to but I’m not supposed to talk about it,” shared the actress.
Things have also changed on film sets.
“I was doing Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and on my first day shoot I had this dialogue where I was saying my dialogue realistically and talking just like that. So our director Hitesh, he called me aside and he said, ‘No, iska surr itna ocha hona chahiye. Oonche se shuru karna chahiye’. Toh mene kaha but why? Then he explained me the reason. I understood the reason because I am talking to somebody who is in a place on phone jaha bohot shor hai. Toh shor wali jagah agar aap bhi bolenge toh ooncha bolenge na, and I understood the logic. So I did how I was told to do it and came back to my hotel. But I was like, ‘shit yaar, yeh level pe meko kaam karayenge, yeh level pe’. I understood the whole film, so I read the script again, I understood that this film is going to be like this, it is not Badhaai Ho, you know what I mean. So I understood because I trusted the director and I understood his logic.
Even if I had not understood, like there was a series called ‘Srimaan Srimati’, bohot pehle Archana Puran Singh was pregnant, so they took me for some time. Usme bhi director ne mujhe utna upar se shuru karwaya. It was that kind of comedy. Meko bohot taklif hoti thi but I understood ki bhaiya yeh comedy aise hi karni he. Aise nahi phasi ki bohot bura director, koi logic nahi he aur mujhe karna pade. Ha phasi hu ek do baar shuru shuru mein when I had to do roles which had no beginning, no middle, nothing, which had no logic, which had no sense. I have done many of those but then you needed money so it was okay.”