I am a terrible businessman: Arshad Warsi

Actor feels that a producer’s job is a thankless one.

MUMBAI:

Moviemaking is as tough as running a business. It is tricky and taxing says actor Arshad Warsi, who tried his hands at production with Hum Tum Aur Ghost, and ended up burning his fingers.

Director Kabeer Kaushik, of Sehar fame, wielded the megaphone for Hum Tum Aur Ghost, which showed Arshad as a man who can see dead people. The unoriginal story failed to connect with either the audience or the critics.

The 45-year-old’s experience has taught him that a “producer’s job is a thankless job.” Arshad says that it was an enlightening experience that showed him what his shortcomings were. “It is one of the most difficult things to do and especially with someone like me — I am a terrible businessman. If I want to produce, I have to get somebody involved,” said Arshad.

Nowadays, a producer’s job description has evolved to include a head for business, because movies are treated like products the packaging of which has become essential to get right. “It’s a tough job in today’s time when movies are not just films, they have become products. So you are not a producer any more, you are a businessman who needs to sell his product. It’s a whole different ball game now. The whole charm of making a movie has gone. Now it’s very taxing to do it,” he explains.



Arshad has now put film production on the backburner. Currently he is busy with his acting projects and he is looking forward to the release of films Dedh Ishqiya (a sequel to Ishqiya) and Mr Joe B Carvalho. Both are coming out in January next year.

Arshad has done some very intimate scenes with co-star Huma Qureshi, despite the fact that his wife Maria Goretti doesn’t like him getting cosy with co-stars on screen. “Maria doesn’t like it at all. There are no two ways about it and I can totally understand,” said the actor, who has two children with his wife. “I don’t like it myself. There was no hint of me ever becoming an actor. It happened by default. Poor thing, she didn’t know what she was getting into,” he added humorously.



Survival is not easy in filmdom as there is tough competition everywhere, but Arshad is not insecure. “I am not competitive. A lot of people say that ‘the numbers game doesn’t matter to me’, but very few mean it,” he asserted. “When I do a film, for me, every person in that film is important. I don’t feel insecure at all. I want my film to do well. It becomes easy to work with a person like me. I improvise for everybody on the set.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2013.

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