Saswata Chatterjee

“Once I went to watch 'Hatari' with my Mama and there was a rhino attack scene where I cried so much that they had to take me back home at interval.”

“See, there are just that many in 'character' roles that you can get. So I will wait for something mind-blowing to come my way.”

“See, Independence means freedom, for me, more specifically, freedom of speech which we seem to have lost.”

“Bob has died in 'Kahaani' and so the tag should not be anymore with me now.”

“The first condition for comedy is that if you laugh at your own jokes, others won't laugh. You have to say something funny very seriously.”

“Bengali film has again moved from the insipid, lackluster contents to rich, varied ones.”

“If any director offers my role to some other actor just because he can't trace me, then I think the character was never meant for me.”

“After 'Kahaani,' I received a lot of offers for similar roles - from Hindi as well as Bengali filmmakers. But I didn't want a repeat performance of Bob.”

“The day Bengali cinema lost touch with literature and started aping the south, the middle class audience stopped going to the cinema halls and later the larger audience too stopped going.”

“I am no more solely counted for comic or villain roles, which comes more often in mainstream, masala films.”

“'Damadol' is a dig at commercial cinema where I play the role of the blunt-headed producer who loves masala flicks and feels he knows everything about films.”

“I do not accept a character or a script that I do not like.”

“Even when people are watching a movie in a multiplex, they insult the film by constantly checking their phones and flashing lights. At times, even when the audience is being told to not flash their cameras, they do, and you can't do anything because it's a habit for them and they can't stop. I don't want that for myself.”

“It is television which has made Saswata Chatterjee. TV as a medium of entertainment cannot and should not be belittled by a film actor.”

“Directors didn't flood me with offers because I was Subhendu's son. I had to slog to find my foothold.”

“I have to grab audience attention even if I don't last beyond 2-3 minutes before the camera.”

“I grew up watching Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray and Mirnal Sen's works in my youth, which was a very turbulent phase in Bengal's history.”

“Smartphones are good but I often ask myself whether I am good enough to handle it. Like, few days ago I saw a man talking over his phone while crossing the road. And I was driving then. I was surprised to see he didn't even look at the car in front of him.”

“I look like a typical Bengali. Whereas the qualities people were used to seeing in heroes were dance and action, which aren't really Bengali characteristics.”

“The only problem with a TV serial is you never know where it will go.”