Jackky Bhagnani, an actor and producer who studied at Lee Strasberg’s Theatre and Film Institute, often draws inspiration from his own experience to analyze the status quo of Indian films. “Lee Strasberg’s teaching method encourages aspiring actors to use their life experiences and emotions to create their own performances. This training not only sensitizes me to the importance of my personal experience as an actor, but also plays a good role in creating strong experiences for the audience,” he said.
Referring to recent OTT sensings like ‘Baby Reindeer’ and ‘Adolscence’, he says, “These shows amalgamate compelling storytelling about the human condition, primary emotions and stunning performances. They take the audience beyond entertainment and spark conversations about gender, culture and make us look within and introspect. That is what cinema needs to do as well. We are in the throes of a huge cultural and social transition and our stories need to reflect that. People may enjoy watching bigger than the big heroes of life, but they also want to see themselves in the storytelling story.”
As an actor and avid movie viewer, he believes that good writing and historicity are closely related to others. As he said: “No matter how accomplished he or she is, there are no actors, and if their roles are not good, especially when the audience becomes increasingly picky, they can do a lot, and engaging storytelling is more important than ever. Pure star power cannot be a major attraction for people.”
He noted that there was an obvious script clip in the cinema today and said, “Screen writing is an art and today is not enough to focus it on it. It is also very important to play a good story, and I feel that film writing has to leverage real human experiences to have universal connections. The regional industry has gotten a certain range to some extent, you can see certain characters, you can see good characters and compelling characters and compelling performance.”
He acknowledges that today, given its very diverse audience, the challenges faced by the industry vary. As he said: “We are competing with the international content consumed by the urban segment and also working to connect with rural sensitivities and audiences in Level 2 and Level 3. It’s not easy to figure out all the boxes there, but I think, I think, I think, I think, meaningful narratives are closely related to good performances. If we offer something really unique, then we need to try to use genres, topics, ideas beyond that and build confidence in good ideas, whatever the trend is.
As a producer, he also realized the importance of factors such as marketing, production costs and a wise budget in making or destroying movies. “In Puja movies, we want to strategically balance economic considerations and creativity to tell stories that are informal in connection with the audience at a deeper level. Good storytelling is part of Hindi films since its inception and we just need to embrace this legacy as we move forward.”
