• Home
• /
• Entertainment

‘I find comedy challenging’

Then came her marriage to actor Pankaj Kapoor (thus making Shahid Kapoor her step-son), which earned her print space in several tabloids. And the final link in this line-up of celebrity associations was her brother-in-law, actor Naseeruddin Shah.

But following an 11-year long hiatus, the actress returned in 2005 with Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar in a small but significant role as the wife of Amitabh Bachchan’s character and the mother of Abhishek Bachchan’s character and made her mark.

So, what was it like working with the renowned father-son duo? “You really can’t compare the two because they’re very different kind of actors with very different ways of working. Abhishek is amazingly hard working. They were very happy acting with each other.”

And Pathak would know how dilligent the junior Bachchan is, considering that she had the opportunity to observe him at work again on the sets of the eagerly awaited Delhi 6.

“We (the ensemble cast and I) play characters residing in an area known as Delhi 6. We play a family from the business community, and my character is a housewife. I play the mother of the girl (Sonam Kapoor),” elaborates Pathak. “But it is definitely not your typical hero-heroine centric sort of love story.”

Having gained experience in both cinema and television, Pathak also feels that she is in a suitable spot to compare the two mediums. “Personally, I find watching cinema more exciting than watching a television show. I don’t really like or watch shows on TV today. As an actor it’s no different working in either medium. But in television you get more time to work on the characters (sometimes that can get terribly boring). In whatever little footage you have in a film you have to communicate the character.”

But Pathak has had a long and steady relationship with the television show Khichdi for which she even acquired an award for Best Actor in a Comic Role despite her fear of boredom. “I find comedy challenging. It’s a matter of timing. You never know whether or not you have hit the right sur. In a serial, it’s very difficult to keep recreating the magic every episode every week. Tragedy is very easy.”

Pathak then goes on to elucidate on how cinema has evolved over the years since she’s been here. “We’ve grown well; we’re definitely moving forward. I’m very happy with the kind of work I’ve been seeing recently. In the middle, Indian Cinema had become dead. Now, subjects have become important, the actors don’t matter as much. And we have interesting stories rather than the clichéd love stories.”

And what does she think of the new generation of actors and filmmakers? “Sonam is very pretty and extremely hard-working,” comments Pathak on her ‘daughter’. “The work that the youngsters are putting in nowadays is so much more exciting than what we had back then. The new generation of actors are really prepared for whatever the profession throws at them. They want to be remembered for the work they do rather than the star status that they get. The whole new movement of cinema now is because of the new wave of directors and even the producers who are willing to invest their money in such subjects. They want to say something with their films, not just have song and dance sequences. They want their stamp on it.”

Next on the actress’s plate is a film made by Bhavna Talwar. Then there’s a movie with director Ayan Mukherjee starring Ranbir Kapoor.

ctiytime@emirates.net.ae