Someone asked me today...

“In order to promote their movies, an increasing number of celebrities/actors are opting to appear as guests on popular television shows. Often times the content of such shows is garbage. (nauseating zoom in/zoom out on the emotional mother’s face whose child contestant din’t make the cut, and other dirty techniques to exploit the viewer’s values for TRP)

I’m sure that a number of these actors recognize that, and agree to appear on such shows only to spread awareness about the film they’ve worked so hard to make. But in doing so, they’re indirectly also saying that “I approve of this type of television.” While they choose so carefully the movie scripts they work on, What about the unscripted hideousness that is reality shows? Does it dilute an actor’s integrity you think?

I’m afraid that due to your talent, you will soon be popular and somewhere down the road a publicist or agent may want you to do the same thing. Would you?”

This was posted as a comment on my last to last blog (the last being the latest victim in the insidious war I wage against political correctness) by a person calling themselves ‘Kashmirfan’. And it’s had me thinking all evening. As you all must be tired of hearing - “Sikandar” releases on the 21st of August. I await that date with an ever burgeoning mixture of excitement and dread. It’s an odd feeling knowing that pretty soon many, many (hopefully a few more many’s than that) eyes will have seen my first bit of work in front of the camera. And I’d be lying if I pretended to not care what people think about me as an actor, since it is precisely that response that will determine whether I get more work or not.

Because believe it or not, the work IS all I care about. I’ve never paused to consider what would happen to my freedom of opinion (which I value, strongly) as I moved further and further into a public arena, where not only my work, but everything about me would be judged, gauged, dismissed, admired, scorned appreciated. I never actually thought to consider the career more than finding work and doing it. I had posted a review of my honest opinion of a film recently here that I was ‘asked’ to take down. Not because what I was saying was wrong, or unfounded, but simply for the act of having said it. I’m not entitled to an opinion. I must be liked. Even though I commented only on the film. I had nothing against any of the actors in the film personally, or professionally. I’m a lover of cinema, and it always has and always will elicit a strong response from me. How can an actor not have an opinion on a film? It’s like saying a economist shouldn’t have an opinion on a new budget. It’s ludicrous.

I never considered that once I sign a contract with a production house to do a film, they legally own the rights to my time and my person and can use me to promote the film as they see fit. Consider what it must be like for actors Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra to be constantly in the news. What must it do to their private lives to have every single move they make towards one another analyzed and magnified? And of course, it’s only coincidental that they have an eagerly awaited film, “Kaminey”, shortly due to hit cinemas right? Right. Couldn’t have anything to do with that. Did they stage the relationship to promote the film? Did the producers of the film do it for them, or even despite them? Because that is how films do seem to be promoted these days - controversy and sex. The sure fire weapons in any public relation team’s arsenal. That’s all they seem to want to do, know how to. And are they wrong in thinking that all this works?

Kashmirfan, my friend, it’s a tricky question to ask and even trickier to answer. When “Sikandar” was being prepped for all the attendant, soon-to-be-unleashed marketing campaign, I was privy to a fair amount of brainstorming as to how the film should be promoted. The team seemed more interested in knowing whether I was dating a celebrity and how great that would have been in terms of marketing, than actually selling the film itself. So if the best these geniuses can come up is the idea to have me appear on the “Rakhi Sawant ka Swayamvara” show, what else needs to be said?

Thank the Goddess, that idea died a swift and immediate death, but it was an actual suggestion put on the table. How would me, who nobody in Indian really cares about right now because they’ve never even seen my work, appearing on a show like that, be promoting “Sikandar”? I have no answer. But I signed a contract that said I agreed to let the producer’s decide how best to utilize me for their marketing strategy. So if BIG Pictures had decided to push me to appear on the show, I would have been contractually obligated to do so. I would have told them to go stick their heads into dark, moist places, but then I would be labelled and ostracized in the industry for being a trouble-maker and a louse.

I think actors after a certain level of success or time, simply disconnect themselves from their public persona. They must, right? Otherwise how could they stand all the cringe-worthy things they are made to do, the rubbish shows they are made to appear on and pretend to involve themselves in? Because believe me, it’s not like an actor has a choice really. Certainly not one at my most humble level.

I concur completely with Kashmirfan’s assertion that an actor appearing on a show is an endorsement of it. Presence implies allegiance. How can an actor who is so particular about the kind of work that he/she does, be so cavalier and laissez-fair about the manner in which they conduct themselves during publicity drives? But they don’t have a choice. And in many cases, they simply don’t care, they’ve been at it for so long.

So in all honesty, I don’t know what I would do. Would I not want to help promote the film that I am a part of as best as I could? However, would that be worth the betrayal of every artistic sensibility I have, say if I was asked to allow them to link me up in the press with some actress whom I’ve barely said two words to my entire life? Or pay almost triple what I earn for a role in order to get my name and some horrendously pointless bit of badly written trivia into the press?
All I know is that I’m glad at least I’m aware of the questions. I have many leagues of maturity to chart, and missteps to go before I can consider myself wise enough to answer any of them. I’m a kid who wanted to act since he was nine years old. I wanted to be like Marlon Brando. It’s only when you grow up that you realize that Marlon Brando’s life was not a very happy one. And then you ask yourself the most important question - because anyone can survive struggle and hardship, human beings seem to be uniquely capable of that as a species. But can you survive success?

August 21st is when the quest to find an answer begins, I suppose. Failure is a familiar demon. Success…

I pray to my Goddess, that she grant me the serenity and the equilibrium to weather either with my spirit intact.