Jason Shah felt ‘out of place’ on ‘Heeramandi’ set, recalls a ‘nonchalant’ first meeting with Bhansali

Jason Shah said, “I found it (the set) to be lacking in the simple niceties of human nature."

Jason Shah, who played the merciless Alastair Cartwright in ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ has opened up about his experience on the set of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s OTT directorial debut project.

“I found it (the set) to be lacking in the simple niceties of human nature. I felt like there were places where just 'Hi Jason, this is this person, the director you will be working with today' (could have been said). I was not introduced to many people over there, which I found very odd. I found it a little confusing in some ways,” he said.

Shah continued, "I started thinking, I am the villain (on the show), so maybe they want the villain to be angry and disconnected from everybody. But me being connected to a human being on set never really boils over to my character onscreen. I felt a little bit out of place in some places, but I guess you keep on going with the flow of things and pick it up from wherever.”

He also recalled his first meeting with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, "I was sitting inside one of the rooms in his office. I had the script in my hand, and that's when he came in and started nonchalantly looking through a cupboard. He then looked over and said a very silent, ‘Hi.' It wasn't an introduction of sorts. I realised later that he had come to see me to check if the guy that he chose would be able to carry it off.”

Jason Shah also recently spoke about the trolling that his co-star Sharmin Segal has been facing ever since the series was released.

He said, “I have heard a lot about this, honestly, I feel a bit sorry for her. In certain scenes to me it felt like something needs to happen, but it is a different kind of role… To be honest, to keep that one tone, whether it is me smacking her on the table or Tajdar dying, maybe that’s what they were going for.”

“I definitely felt that the character could have intensified a lot more, there could have been a lot of different ups and downs, and the graph could have been very different because you had the opportunity, the scope to do so much. But if that’s what they were going for and accomplished, great. If not, then it is what it is,” he added.