Shekhar Suman reveals he never wanted to do comedy: ‘Neither wanted to do Movers and Shakers nor Dekh Bhai Dekh’

Citing the example of his debut Bollywood movie Utsav which is based on a play called Mrichakatika, the actor added, “If you look at it, my first film was Utsav which is based on literature. As an actor, I have always been interested in intense things. I have a great sense of humour otherwise but as far as roles are concerned, I neither wanted to do Movers and Shakers nor did I want to do Dekh Bhai Dekh. I tried a lot to run away from comedy and even today I run away from it.”

Today, if someone calls Shekhar Suman ‘a great comedian’, he gets annoyed. Shekhar said, “A lot of people come and tell me that I am a great comedian. But I get annoyed. I tell them I do not do comedy; I do satire. I do not do standup comedy. There is a difference between satire and comedy. This is a dialogue or monologue. I am a well-learned man. There is a huge difference between satire and comedy. Satire is the art of talking about relevant things in an intelligent way and in a manner which may or may not hurt people.”

However, the actor said for him Dekh Bhai Dekh was like an institution where he learnt a lot. He remembered that the show’s team would work on four hours of sleep. They spent 18-20 hours on the set and put a lot of effort into rehearsals and script-reading sessions.