Nawazuddin Siddiqui says big films causing ‘most damage to Bollywood’: ‘These films have no story, performance… stars actors rejected by people’

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is in no mood to backdown. The actor says if the Hindi film industry is struggling theatrically to deliver consecutive hits, it is because of its own lackadaisical attitude of putting together a project with no story, featuring actors which the audience has rejected multiple times.

Post-Covid, only a handful of Hindi films have delivered big at the box office. With the exception of Shah Rukh Khan-led Pathaan, which scripted box office history, Bollywood didn’t see much success in the first quarter of the year despite some big releases. A section of the trade feels only tentpole films will now pull the audiences in cinema halls but Nawazuddin doesn’t agree with that.

The actor tells a leading media house that it is the lavishly mounted films which are actually bringing the industry down, as they are hollow when it comes to script, storytelling, direction and even performances. Interestingly, Nawazuddin himself was part of a big film last year, Heropanti 2 led by Tiger Shroff, which was a mega box office disaster.

“Sabse nuksan industry ko badi filmein he kar rahi hai (The big films are causing the most damage to the industry). In a rare case something works at the box office for whatever reason. But mostly, if you leave three films, 97 per cent of the films are flopping. And these are all big films. These are the films which are actually bringing the industry down, yehi barbaad kar rahi hai.

“These films don’t have any stories, performances. They just have five songs, designed by the choreographer and if there is action, that’s done by the action designer. What’s the director doing in that? What’s the actor doing in that?” the actor wonders.

According to Nawazuddin, who is currently awaiting the release of his upcoming romantic-comedy Jogira Sara Ra Ra, said the industry still believes in investing huge amount of money in hastily put together projects with actors no one is interested in watching, rather than give an equal oppurtunity to an artiste people love.

“They take 10-15 actors, cast them together and make a film of Rs 60-100 cr, which people don’t want to watch. These films have nothing and then they flop. They have never taken a good actor and made a film of Rs 50 cr. There is a public’s actor and an industry’s actor. The industry’s actor keeps coming back but the audience doesn’t like him. But jo public ka actor hai usey public tak pahuchne bhi nahi diay jaata (the public’s actor is never allowed to even reach the audience),” he adds.

Directed by Kushan Nandy and jointly produced by Kiran Shroff and Naeem Siddiqui, Jogira Sara Ra Ra also stars Neha Sharma alongside Sanjay Mishra and Mahaakshay Chakraborty. The film, written by Ghalib Asad Bhopali, is scheduled to release on May 12.