Ever since the release of director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s period drama streaming series ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’, viewers have been showering Jason Shah with praise for his performance as the antagonistic British cop Alastair Cartwright. However, the actor recently revealed that working on the show was not entirely pleasant, describing the atmosphere on set as ‘stressful’.
Shah recently opened up further about his experience on the ‘Heeramandi’ set, stating that it ‘lacked the simple niceties of human nature’. During a conversation with a leading media house, when asked if he was treated equally on set or faced with discrimination, Shah replied, “I found it to be lacking just simple niceties of human nature. I wasn’t introduced to many people over there, which I found very odd and a little confusing.”
“Then I started to think that since I play the villain, they want me to be angry and disconnected from everybody. But for me, being connected to a human being on set never boils over into my character. I definitely felt a little bit out of place, but I guess you just keep on going with the flow of things,” he added.
Recalling the first time he met Bhansali, he said, “I was sitting inside one of the rooms in his office. I had the script in my hand and that’s when he came in and started nonchalantly looking through a cupboard. He then looked over and said a very silent, ‘Hi’. It wasn’t an introduction of sorts. I realised later that he had come to see me to check if the guy that he chose would be able to carry it off.” He said that he only had a few interactions with the filmmaker afterward.
During a recent interview with ‘Bollywood Now’, Shah talked in detail about the ‘stressful’ environment on set and said that he would’ve liked more time to prepare for the role. “There were a lot of days when I’d be shooting at the end. We would do a lot of closes and most of the time, I’d be the last one for my closes. It’s not that I’m trying to be the victim here, but I was told things like, ‘Jason, you have 45 minutes’. So, I’ve done some massive scenes in a very short amount of time,” he said.