Vijay Varma on Naseeruddin Shah: ‘Sounds like God is talking to you’

For actor Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah has the ‘voice of God’. While speaking at the IFP Season 15 stage, the young actor said just like Morgan Freeman is the ‘voice of God in Hollywood’, here we have Shah as the ‘voice of God’. Recently, Varma has worked with the veteran actor in ‘Gustaakh Ishq: Kuch Pahle Jaisa’, which brings back old-world romance. The film, also starring Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sharib Hashmi, is struggling at the box office.

Varma, who had worked with Shah in ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ before, couldn’t stop praising the baritone of the senior actor. “Have you heard him? It sounds like God is talking to you directly. He has got that baritone, that voice that comes from somewhere else. It sounds like the voice of the universe. Like Morgan Freeman is the voice of God in Hollywood and we have Naseeruddin Shah as the voice of God. I mean, his grip over the languages - Hindi, Urdu, English, even Punjabi and Parsi... he is so good with so many different dialects. He is an institution,” said the ‘Darlings’ actor.

He further added, “Just being around him, looking at him working, looking at him being, is an experience. I have had two profound experiences. One was with Amitabh Bachchan when I was shooting ‘Pink’. And one was with Naseer sir. It’s amazing to just look at them.”

Echoing the sentiment, Fatima called Shah ‘inherently a teacher’. She recalled a memory that captured the mix of fear and admiration that came with performing opposite him. “I was actually very worried he’d judge me. There was this one scene where I had to cry and he did something really small, but it changed the whole moment. He placed my hand on his pulse so I could feel the heartbeat, basically telling me to be in the moment. What really empowered me was Naseer sir saying, ‘It’s okay. Feel it. You don’t have to hit those beats perfectly’,” she said.