Nawazuddin Siddiqui was unimpressed by early cut of Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur, thought, ‘Yeh kya bana diya hai yaar’

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The actor continued, “He’s a genius man. He changed the face of Indian cinema, and the entire world took notice. He might not be appreciated in his own country, but I’m sorry, the world knows what he has done.” Gangs of Wasseypur premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight category at the 2012 edition of Cannes. Anurag followed it up with two more Cannes selections, the 2016 film Raman Raghav 2.0, which also played in the Directors’ Fortnight category, and 2023’s Kennedy, which premiered in the Midnight Screenings category.

In an earlier interview, Nawaz admitted that Anurag wasn’t impressed with his acting choices in Gangs of Wasseypur, and let him know this very early in the process. Nawaz recalled in an interview with Shubhankar Mishra, “He said, ‘Yeh kya kar raha hai tu? Tu pagal hai kya? Kis tarah se kar raha hai tu? Overacting kyu kar raha hai? (What in the world are you doing? How are you playing it? Have you lost your mind, why are you overacting?’”

Nawaz worked with Anurag on Raman Raghav 2.0, and then in the first Indian Netflix original series, Sacred Games. In the same interview, the actor expressed dissatisfaction with the show’s second season, and speculated that the main reason behind the lukewarm reception was the depiction of his character, Ganesh Gaitonde. He said that because the formidable gangster was portrayed as ‘weak’ in the second season, audiences that had become fans were let down.