Theatre is a place where almost all actors lean on to hone their acting talent. It’s no secret that the actors with theatre background are considered scene-stealers and a few insecure leading stars of Bollywood, are afraid to share the screen alongside them. And these actors, referred to as character actors, actually give spine to the lead actor’s screen character graph.
Shernaz Patel, is one of such actress , who bagged Best Suppoting Actress award, sharing screen with Hritik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai, for her role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish. Incidentally, her father Burjor Patel, a name to reckon with Gujarathi, Parsi theatre, had done a play on the same theme, years back.
The father-daughter duo, Burjor Patel-Shernaz Patel, interacted live, with select audience, at Kitab Khana recently. Sanjana Kapoor, who belongs to the Kapoor Khandaan, which once used be considered first family of Bollywood, welcomed the guests and said ‘I have been chasing Shernaz for almost four months, for this interaction, but she being busy with her assignments couldn’t make it earlier.’
Shernaz volunteered the role of interviewer, saying ‘I am feeling journalistic, suddenly’ and steering this conversation. Burjor Patel, reminisced about how he had to wait for a month, for attending rehearsals of Adi Marzban, who was a huge theatre-name then, to get a four-line role, at a last minute. And how he ventured out as an executive producer with INT (Indian National Theatre) and then to become a full-fledge producer. After wanting to be away from farcical Parsi plays, he produced Gujarati plays and when saw a window for English plays and grabbed that opportunity. Bottoms Up was one of the successful plays, he produced, wherein he engaged actors from Gujarati, Parsi, Hindi, English and Marathi theatre.
Shernaz Patel looked a little in awe of her father’s achievements and was reluctant to take away focus from her parents. Incidentally, her mother Ruby Patel, also a big name on Gujarati, Parsi theatre was also present, but chose to be part of the audience. Shernaz shared her experiences with her star-parents and said ‘As I was born in a theatre family, acting in plays came easily to me’.
Holder of a Master’s degree in Acting from Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Shernaz Patel has done quite a few hindi movies, viz. Talaash, Roy, Rockstar, Big Brother, Hum Tum aur Ghost , O Maria to name a few. She started her own theatre company RAGE with Rahul da Cunha and Rajit Kapur.
These ‘3 buddies’ gave number of good plays to the audience . ‘In between, Daddy took a sabbatical of 12 years, to strengthen family’s financial position, and went away to Dubai to work with Khaleej Times. But, even then he arranged invites for plays to be staged in the Middle East’ a proud daughter was talking.
Shernaz Patel, a passionate theatre enthusiast along with her famous parents, will be holding a talent hunt programme very soon and maintains ‘There’s not much money in theatre but the passion for art keeps me going’. She further added, ‘My father is extremely energetic at this Young age of 85 and for him “Life begins at 80 !”.’