Sanjay Leela Bhansali is basking in the success of his debut series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. The series based on the life of courtesans has been receiving wide critical and commercial acclaim. The filmmaker has now spoken about what he thinks is the problem with Indian cinema and blames actors for leaving out technicians and other people behind the scenes while talking about a good performance. 

Sanjay Leela Bhansali blames actors for hijacking credit 

In an interview with Galatta Plus, Sanjay Leela Bhansali shared what according to him is the problem with Indian cinema. He mentioned that actors often skip the mention of technicians and teams behind the scenes when talking about their performances in a project. He argued that a good performance is often driven by several factors and not just the acting. 

He said, “A performance does not belong to an actor. A good performance belongs to a director, dialogue writer, cinematographer, art director, costume designer, choreographer, editor, the guy who has painted the wall behind you.” Talking about the actor’s perception he said, “You (the actor) are saying ‘my performance’, but you are never saying that these people are responsible for my performance. Everything is suddenly hijacked by the actor, which is where the problem in Indian cinema is.” 

Sanjay Leela Bhansali tasks about actors getting an ‘illusion of freedom’ 

In the same interview, the filmmaker shared that most often when actors say that they were given ‘freedom’, it the director giving them an illusion of ‘flexibility’. Talking about his personal way of connecting with his actors he said, “There is a very strange way of me reaching out to them. So, sometimes my actors go to the extent of saying that ‘we were given the freedom and we did this’. No, there is no freedom. There is an illusion of freedom given to you, you are told what to do, sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously.” 

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is currently working on his next project Love and War which stars Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal and Ranbir Kapoor in lead roles. The film is scheduled to be released on Christmas 2025.