Raveena Tandon, Taapsee Pannu fear working with ‘confused directors’, say actors have to bear the brunt of bad reviews

Taapsee Pannu and Raveena Tandon have said that their ‘biggest fear’ as actors is not understanding the vision of the directors. The two have agreed that actors have to bear the brunt sometimes because of ‘confused’ filmmakers. They said the audience judges the actors for how they approach their characters, whereas its actually the director who instructed them to do so.   

“There are times when the director’s confused. Achha aise nahi, chalo aise try karte hai (Not this, let’s try something else). But we can’t do that sir, because this is the attitude that’s needed. Then at that time, you are conflicted in your mind that what does he really want from the character. Does he want it this way or does he want it that way? And then it becomes little bit of a muddle, mess,” Raveena said in discussion. 

Raveena and Taapsee were in conversation with Rajeev Masand during the Actors’ Roundtable 2021. Talking about if conversations take place about how to portray a character before shoot, Taapsee said: “They do, but on set, it suddenly abruptly changes. This has happened at times that we have discussed and thought that ‘ok, this should be the approach of the character’ and then you reach the set and (told to) react like that (in a different way). But then I say that ‘it’s not in line with the discussion that we had before’. (The director says), ‘no, in this situation just react, just do as I say’. This scares me. You have to at least tell me so that I know the graph in my head — where I start, where I am ending, what’s my next shot. Where do I pick up the emotion of the next shot? You can’t just say ‘Ye bhi karlo, wo bhi karlo, jo better hoga wo dekhlenge’ (do this, do this as well, we will take the better shot). This scares me.” 

Raveena agreed with Taapsee and said that it’s the actor who has to bear the consequences. She said, “In the end, its the brunt that the actor’s face. Because when the reviews come out, it’s like ‘Oh, she didn’t do it that way’. Dude, I was told to do it this way.” Taapsee also echoed the same emotion. 

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Taapsee added, “Sometimes they edit. There is a transition shot that we have given and it is picked off in edit because of the length or whatever. I am like, ‘How will I make sense, I am in this emotion and now suddenly I am in this emotion’. There was a transition shot but they say ‘no it was not needed’. I look bad as an actor because I couldn’t show the emotion.”