Conversations with Waheeda Rehman by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Waheeda Rehman Page A

day—going from one set to another, from one film to another.
    In later years, Girish Karnad and Arundhati Nag and others asked me to act in their plays. Now I think what if I am on the stage and forget my lines? Why make a fool of myself?
    NMK: When I interviewed Gulzar Saab he said, unlike stage acting, the difficulty for film actors is expressing themselves in bursts of performance. You do a shot, sit down andsometime later you do the next shot. It’s an off-and-on kind of performance.
    WR: That is difficult. Plus, when you go back in front of the camera after a break—which could be a long or a short break—you have to match the mood, the intensity and the momentum of your last take.
    When I had a difficult scene to do, I’d ask my director to film the whole scene in a master shot, so the emotions would come out in a single flow. Later the scene could be divided into close-ups and wide shots, or whatever.
    This was helpful because it allowed us actors to perform the scene from start to finish. Otherwise if we did a shot, sat down, had tea and then went back in front of the camera—the continuity of mood and emotion was gone.
    NMK: I hear that Naseeruddin Shah prefers doing a scene in a master shot too. It takes a skilled actor to hold the shot for a long time, especially without having many retakes.
    I was surprised when Guruswamy told me in an interview years ago that Guru Dutt would ask for many retakes.
    WR: Everyone thought the retakes in
Pyaasa
were needed because of me, given that I was the newcomer. To the contrary! It was Guruduttji who had this habit of asking for take after take. Sometimes he was not sure what he wanted from a scene. But when you keep retaking the same shot, your performancebecomes stale and mechanical. Your dialogue delivery can end up sounding flat and lifeless.
    I remember Guruswamy once called me at home—I was not needed on the set as Guruduttji and Mala Sinha were shooting a long dialogue scene that takes place in Mr Ghosh’s office—and he said: ‘Come now! You must see what’s going on. You get worried about retakes—come and watch these veterans. They started the shot yesterday and are still at it.’
[we laugh]
    NMK: Even recently, V.K. Murthy in an interview referred to the scene you just spoke about and said that Guru Dutt asked for 104 takes! Clearly he was not easily satisfied with his acting. So how did he judge his own performance?
    WR: He would ask his chief assistant or Abrar if his take was okay. Murthy sometimes told him if he thought Guruduttji could do the shot better.
    NMK: Did you need many retakes?
    WR: My first take was usually good, the second was less good and by the third take my energy level completely dropped. Even if the first take was fine, the directors would invariably say: ‘One more. For safety.’ If you asked the director why—was there something lacking in the performance? What went wrong?—no one would give me a clear answer.
    The only directors who explained the need for a retake were Guruduttji, Satyajit Ray, Asit Sen, Vijay Anand, Basu Bhattacharya and A. Subba Rao, the man who made
Milan
. I made
Darpan
with him in 1970. These directors explained things clearly to me: ‘Your pitch was too high. Modulate your voice like this.’ Or whatever. But most directors never said anything.

    With brother-in-law Abdul Malik (elder sister Shahida’s husband) at Vauhini Studios, Madras, during the making of
Rakhi
. Circa 1962.
    NMK: Some directors do not like showing the actor the rushes—or dailies, as they are also called. During the 1950s, you mentioned the cast and crew saw the rushes and trial shows. Were actors always encouraged to do this?
    WR: Yes. And for many years the whole unit would watch the songs too.
    After the screening, the director would decide if he needed to retake a shot or a scene, to improve it. Sometimes the microphone boom had dropped into the frame—if it wasn’t very obvious, and just at the edge of the frame, the