Exclusive: Jugal Hansraj reveals why Shabana Azmi was indifferent towards him during the shooting of Masoom: ‘She didn’t want to get close…’

Jugal Hansraj is a well-known face of the Indian film industry. In 1983, the actor-filmmaker entered Bollywood as a child artiste with Shekhar Kapur’s film Masoom. In the film, he shared the screen with great stars like Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah. In an exclusive interview with IHNS, Hansraj shared lesser known details of her relationship with Azmi and why she avoided any interaction with him during the shooting of the film.

Jugal Hansraj reveals why Shabana Azmi was ‘cold’ towards him

In an exclusive interview with IHNS, Jugal Hansraj talks about his career trajectory, relationship with B-Town stalwarts and everything in between. During the chat, when the host asked if he would talk to his co-star Shabana Azmi on the sets, the actor replied that they stay away from each other as he is a “method actor”.

Hansraj explained, “He was very friendly with both the children, because she was the mother and they were her children in the film. But Shabana ji lived a little away from me.” (She was very friendly with the other two girls because she was playing their mother in the film, but she kept her distance from me.)

Watch the interview below:

But Hansraj later realized that the senior actress did this to improve her craft and make their troubled relationship in the film relatable to the audience. Jugal admitted, “Later I found out that it was a part of her process that she did not want us to come close because that coldness should be visible on the screen. Everyone came to know that there was an uneasiness in me and in my mother too. So both of them did something very unfortunate.” (I later learned that this was part of her process, and she didn’t want us to get close because the audience needed to feel the coldness between us on screen. Everyone was able to see the awkwardness between the two characters, Indu Malhotra (played by Shabana Azmi) and Rahul Malhotra (played by young Jugal Hansraj). She played it beautifully.)