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Boman Irani dons role of Guest Editor

I do not like playing characters that are all good or all bad. I love playing characters that even if evil, have a sliver of hope of redemption.

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On the other hand, a good man cannot be a ‘perfectly’ good man. Besides being boring to watch, perfection in human beings does not exist.

Similarly with news: how much of bad news can a reader take in a day? No matter how bleak it may be, there has to be hope. No matter how sunny it may seem, a perspective of the dangers around us has to be signalled out to the readers. Be it ecological, financial or even social. Much like our Indian films — that are all encompassing. All moods and rasas are taken into consideration while making a film. Similarly why not a newspaper?

I have played an editor before in the film Page 3. I was meant to be charming and fair on the face of it, but as things turned out, ended up as self-serving and even spineless in a crunch situation. But that was what made the character interesting as I said earlier.

No such luck today. I have to play a good editor or else this piece will not see the ‘ink of the day’.

An actor acts, which means he lies, because he is not that person. He is only pretending to be him. But he plays him with as much honesty that he can muster. That is called good acting. Today, as I walked into the Khaleej Times office, I initially looked at it as an acting job. I had to pretend to play the part. As the day went by and seeing these wonderful professionals at work, I realised there is no play-acting here, even if it is honest. How did I land this job? Let’s be honest. Because I am an actor. How do I do it well? The answer is: not by acting.

The greatest role one can ever play is finding the true character of oneself. We spend a lifetime doing so and never find out; while we spend an entire career playing other people more honestly then we play ourselves.

Today I am playing I, an editor. Good or bad, not sure. I honestly tried as I!!!

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