If John a bad actor, so is Abhi: Anurag

[quote]The two go back a long way and the support isn't new for Kashyap. Four years ago, he wrote in defence of John on a blog, mercilessly taking on actors Hrithik and Abhishek to make his point. According to the director, Abhishek Bachchan is a bad actor and Hrithik Roshan doesn't have John's intelligence when it comes to choosing scripts.

The Dev D director said of his No Smoking actor, "There is a lot being written about John's performance in Babul and Kabul... and I am not trying to say he is good in them, he is not. Whose fault is it? Some reviewer wrote that he stands in a corner doing nothing. Why should he do anything when he is not required to do it? He is doing what the director asks him to do."

According to him, the onus for making an actor perform rests on a director. He adds, "Now John is not as good an actor as Hrithik is or Aamir, but the man understands that and works on it. He was pathetic in Babul but that wasn't his role. He was miscast and no one except the director can be blamed for that. Knowing he is an actor who cannot speak the language he was made to speak, someone should have worked with him, someone should have worked with him on his motivations and state of mind, but no one bothered to because no one cared, they already had the proposal, project was already sold."

He compares John to Aamir Khan and takes a dig at Hrithik too. He blogs, "Show me another actor other than Aamir Khan who can refuse two big proposals of doing a Yashraj film and a Mani Ratnam film (incidentally, I worked on both these films that he rejected) and choose absolutely risky Kabul Express or No Smoking... SRK didn't have the courage. Hrithik Roshan, the other day asked me at a friend's party, in front of Kunal Kapoor as witness, 'Why didn't you come to me with No Smoking? I heard the concept somewhere and liked it." He couldn't remember who told him and where, and I did not remind him that it was me who narrated him the concept but at that time he wanted to do something like Starsky and Hutch. Problem is no actor barring Aamir and John have the intelligence or imagination to see a film before it's made."

Kashyap takes on Junior Bachchan too. "If John Abraham is a bad actor than Abhishek Bachchan is equally bad, but who has the b***s to write it? AB was great in Yuva to everybody except me. I am the one who wrote the goddamned lines. I wrote Lallan Singh and they were the best damn lines I ever wrote. And believe me, he didn't understand half of it. He never rose above the script, but he won all the awards. His talent, and his career, the way it has shaped up are two different things and I do not envy him that. He is loved by people. John is rising over the script in what I am doing."[/quote]