Sudhir Mishra recalls working with Om Puri: ‘He was tough, generous guy who would lose it if I shot after midnight’

Some of filmmaker Sudhir Mishra‘s stories were set in the night but actor Om Puri never liked shooting post midnight. Naturally, when the duo worked in the acclaimed 1991 classic Dharavi, there were fireworks.
Sudhir Mishra has opened up about his experience of working with Om Puri and recalled how the legend, who passed away in 2017, was an incredibly giving actor who would stop at nothing to give a good shot– even if it was at the expense of his discomfort.
In an interview with Unfiltered Samdish, the director said he first collaborated with Om Puri on the 1983 cult Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, where Sudhir Mishra was a writer and an assant director.
Om Puri was an important figure of the parallel cinema movement of the 80s. (Photo: Express Archive)
“I worked with Om Puri when I made my third film, I was a young man. I had worked with him as an assant in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and then in 1991 I worked with him (as a director). He was a big guy. He was so graceful, generous. None of these guys were easy. When one says, ‘he was graceful’, it is almost as if they were boring people. Like everyone who talks about Irrfan these days sounds like he was a boring person. He was not. Those were wonderful, ambitious, complicated times. There was a need for money, good work. It was difficult.”
Mishra said Puri’s craft was so strong, he would incorporate last minute suggestion with a remarkable ease. His talent, Mishra recalled, went beyond his performance on-screen as he was also technically sound.
Om Puri had featured in several acclaimed films like Aakrosh, Ardh Satya, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Chachi 420 among others. (Photo: Express Archive)
“You could tell anything to him, he was graceful, technically perfect. You could provoke him the last moment and it would be there in the shot. If I’d say, ‘Puri sahab, ek aisa khayal aaya hai’, he would do that on screen. If there was no tripod and you’d request him to spread his legs and stand and then give close ups, he would do that. He was so technically (sound),” Mishra said, who last helmed Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer Serious Men.
The filmmaker, however, said if there was one thing that Puri was not okay with, were night shoots. “Puri sahab was a tough guy often. He would lose it if you shot after 12 in the night. ‘Kya hai yaar? Chal… leave it,’ he would say. He would be angry but would say, ‘Chal ghar pe, I’ll feed you bhindi.’ My films are mostly set in night, so he would get angry!”

Mishra said once Puri even joked that he would never work with him again as the filmmaker goes to extreme lengths to get the shot that he requires. Dharavai, which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, was the last collaboration of Puri and Mishra.
“Sometimes you go on and on, make them do difficult things. Like I had placed two cameras in separate vans on the road and asked him to run, stop at markers, then turn, then run again and repeat this four times. He would do it, but if someone is running in heat with slippers on, the third or fourth time he is bound to get irritated. He would say, ‘Tere saath nahi karuga ab aagey, tu bohot zyada karta hai (I won’t work with you anymore, you go to extremes). He was senior also to me,” the filmmaker stated.
Mishra said the reason why he could not work with the actor a lot is because he believed in casting new actors and not go for safer options like Naseeruddin Shah or Om Puri. “If everyone works with them, their films will start looking the same. If Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi had the same cast, what would be the difference between my films and that of Shyam Benegal?”