Danish Nawaz breaks down his four-read formula

Director reveals how he studies scripts thoroughly

Actor, writer, and director Danish Nawaz recently shed light on his thorough approach to understanding scripts during an appearance on Faysal Quraishi's podcast. Nawaz explained how he immerses himself in a script—not once, but four times—to truly grasp it.

"There is a lot of command on the script," Nawaz began. "I don't read a script one time - I read it four times. People find it strange. It may seem like I'm not doing anything, but in reality, I'm understanding the script, understanding its concept and what the scene's purpose is, why the scene has been written in the first place - all these things are very important."

Nawaz emphasised that every script is deeply personal to its writer, likening it to a "baby" crafted with immense care and thought. "A script is a writer's baby, and I feel like you need to concern yourself with what was going on in the writer's brain when they wrote it," he said.

He also addressed the challenges of bringing a script to life on set, where variables like location and actors' interpretations can sometimes shift the original intent of the writer. "Often, a writer is sitting alone and writing the script and when you go on set the location is different, the actor is doing things in a different way," he explained.

For Nawaz, casting is not just about selecting talent but about envisioning how each actor will embody the role. He then moulds the script according to who he casts. "My process is that when I cast an actor, I think along the lines of how that actor would play the role based on their previous work."