Actor Shekhar Suman has come to the defense of filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who has been criticized for his occasional outbursts on film sets. Suman attributes these outbursts to Bhansali’s pursuit of perfectionism, saying, “Perfectionists are short-tempered.” He likens Bhansali to legendary filmmakers such as K Asif and Raj Kapoor, who were also known for their short tempers.
In a conversation with YouTuber Siddharth Kannan, Suman, who recently collaborated with Bhansali on the Netflix series ‘Heeramandi,’ shrugged off concerns about Bhansali’s anger, asserting, “How does it matter?” “He has every right to be. Why does he get angry? He’s not a madman. He is a perfectionist. You will notice that perfectionists are always short-tempered because they get impatient with everybody else for not being at their level,” reasoned Suman.
Suman further elaborated, “I know of so many people who are legends in their craft but are also short-tempered. K Asif, Mehboob Khan, and Raj Kapoor were all like this. So, it doesn’t matter. It is all fair. In fact, I will tell him (Bhansali), ‘Aur gussa karo’ (Be even angrier). See what he is creating not only for you but also for posterity.”
Suman’s son, Adhyayan Suman, also dismissed claims of Bhansali’s disrespectful behavior towards actors on set. “He loves his actors, they’re like his children. You cannot imagine how differently he sometimes interprets scenes. By the time you’ve prepared for the scene and come on set, he’s changed the entire scene. There can’t be a better film school. If you’ve survived Bhansali, you can handle anything,” Adhyayan remarked.
Earlier, actor Ranbir Kapoor opened up about being beaten by Bhansali when he was assisting him on the Rani Mukerji-led film ‘Black’. On Neha Dhupia’s podcast, ‘No Filter Neha’, Ranbir had said, “He (Bhansali) was a hard task-master and I was kneeling down on set, he was beating me—after a point it got so heavy and I felt so tortured that I had to quit the film at a point—I think it was like 10 or 11 months into my job and I am like, ‘Listen I can’t do this, it’s getting to me.’”
Despite this, Ranbir made his acting debut with Bhansali’s ‘Saawariya’. He is set to collaborate with the filmmaker again in ‘Love and War’, alongside Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal.
Bhansali had also addressed reports about him losing temper on the set during the trailer launch event of ‘Heeramandi’. He said, “There’s nothing like that. I’m not a taskmaster, it’s the image the media has built upon me that I’m difficult to work with and that I’m temperamental. We just sit over there and find a moment which emerges out of discussion and conversation, which means that I use their mind, and they use my mind, we all get together and that moment of magic comes to us, which I then take credit for and say that I created the magic.”
Bhansali’s debut series, ‘Heeramandi’, is scheduled to stream on Netflix from May 1st. The series features an ensemble cast including Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, and Sanjeeda Sheikh.
