Comedians occupied a big chunk of Bollywood movies 20 years back. They were few in numbers and the charm hey had was not found or even expected in mainstream actors. Where are they now?
Where Have Comedians From Hindi Film Industry Flew Away?
Few names like Kishore Kumar, Paintal. Johny Lever, Deven Verma were an indispensable part of the movie projects. These were the actors tailor-made for a specific genre. Today, we see that actors try hard to cover all fields and space in the movie and comedy is one of them. It looks funny but being a comedian is not everyone’s cup of tea. With failed results, the actors (who are not comedians but tried to dabble in that field) have proved the aforementioned statement.
In one of the media interactions, popular comedian Johny lever told that during film parties, he used to get recognition and applause more than actors and actresses. This kind of attention was craved by actors as well and they started asking for comedy scenes from directors. This snatched a comedian’s part and this is how the original comedians were pushed back.
He also lamented that no writers reserve slots or write roles for comedians anymore. In earlier times, the raw material and space were always giving them freedom where comedians could enhance their parts and bring laughter to the table. That kind of chance has vanished from movie scripts completely.
Johny also blames the payment and injustice that is existing in Bollywood. He says that film-writers are not paid well and so they are unwilling to do extra work. Making space for humor in movies is that extra work. The quality is also sacrificed. Writing such scenes needs patience and today, the movie business runs on extremely tight schedules. Yet another reason for no existence of a role for comedians.
Despite such bad times, Johny Lever has two upcoming films under his wing. One ‘Cooli N0.1 with Varun Dhawan‘ and the other is ‘Cirkus with Ranvir Singh’. Let’s see if these movies will do justice to comedy or not!
