Nobody’s interested in bright ideas in Bollywood, says Joy Sengupta

His debut film Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, won him critical acclaim. A popular face in ad films, theatre circles and for cameo roles (the most recent being Anjaana Anjaani), actor Joy Sengupta has been a hit-and-miss face on the big screen. But that doesn’t bother the talented artiste, who prefers to experiment in theatre, meaningful roles and his production house, Bornfree Cineparadise.

Recently in the city to perform in Feroz Khan’s adaptation of the critically acclaimed play, Dinner With Friends, Joy says he is happier exploring his creative instincts, rather than jumping into the Bollywood rat race.

“There are mainstream actors, fringe and niché actors and so many other types. You can be anything, as long as you are a good artiste,” he remarks.

Films in Bollywood, Joy rues, are often just clichés and hardly push audiences to think. Often, actors in smaller roles are not even given a script of the film. “Now, films hardly probe or ask questions. They are just broad stereotypes of each other,” he points out. The audience also suffers as a result of such flaky films, he points out. “Viewers grow with the kind of work they are shown. If you give them dumb stuff, then why would they bother to even think,” he exclaims.

The actor, who is actively involved with theatre and has won numerous awards for his performances in film festival-circuit cinema, is also focussing on promoting cinematic talent through his production house Bornfree Cineparadise, that aims to work on interesting scripts which speak a global cinematic language.

In the pipeline are three feature films, which Joy hopes will be out by next year. While one of the films deal with the creative crisis of a scriptwriter, another is about a nine-year-old boy pushed into crime because of constant pressure to perform and the third is about a young psychiatrist coming to terms with trying job responsibilities.

Titled Four And A Half, Rick and Helpline respectively, the films feature mostly young, upcoming actors and directors and have been made on shoestring budgets.

“There are young and bright ideas out there. But no one is interested in them because they don’t have a brand value as of now,” he says, hoping that his endeavour will break the mould.