Vivaan Shah on his idyllic 90s childhood and the spirit of Mumbai: ‘Still hold affection for tapori spirit’

Q. Acting oregon writing—which is much satisfying creatively, and why?

Vivaan Shah: Both creation forms complement each different beautifully and are astir the creation of communication. Acting conveys meaning done gestures, expressions, and voice, portion penning does truthful done the organisation of words and the plan of the sentences. My knowing of prose deepened successful my 20s erstwhile I memorised and performed abbreviated stories by writers similar Premchand, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen Leacock. Re-reading their works, overmuch similar replaying a favourite song, helped maine grasp literate technique, syntax, and style.

Q. How was your childhood? Was it often spent accompanying your parents connected movie sets?

Vivaan Shah: My puerility was idyllic—the champion clip of my life. Growing up successful the 90s, earlier digitalisation and gentrification, I lived successful a culturally divers neighbourhood with Muslim, Christian, Maharashtrian, and Sindhi communities. This vulnerability shaped my knowing of assorted subcultures, peculiarly Bhaigiri, which fascinated maine some artistically and anthropologically. Though I often befriended the incorrect crowd, I inactive clasp affection for the streetcorner hoodlum and the tapori spirit, which embodies Bombay’s streets. These experiences influenced my writing, novels, and adjacent my acting.

I visited movie sets with my begetter successful the aboriginal to mid 90s and aboriginal successful the precocious 90s and aboriginal 2000s. That era, erstwhile my begetter was doing enactment films, was a pivotal clip successful Bollywood. I person a heavy fondness for 90s cinema and its unsocial ethos.

Q. Your parents are seasoned actors. How overmuch did that (if astatine all) pb to your determination to articulation the movie industry, too?

Vivaan Shah: I stumbled into acting arsenic a profession, it was ne'er planned. Growing up successful boarding school, from Class 7 to 12, acold removed from showbiz, I assumed my vocation would beryllium based connected academics. There, it was not fashionable to accidental you wanted to beryllium an actor. Acting wasn’t adjacent a information until Vishal Bhardwaj invited maine to audition for 7 Khoon Maaf. Being a immense instrumentality of his, I agreed. It was connected set, witnessing the filmmaking process, that I had an epiphany—cinema plays a important relation successful Indian society, and I was fortunate to beryllium portion of it. That infinitesimal acceptable maine connected the way to becoming a nonrecreational actor.

Q. On the contrary, did you ever consciousness the unit oregon were you made to consciousness that you person large boots to fill?

Vivaan Shah: No. It has ever been a affirmative unit and motivated maine to bash better, enactment harder, and marque my parents proud.

Q. Tell america astir your league astatine the Spoken Fest. How important are specified mediums for you, personally and professionally?

Vivaan Shah: Very important. Spoken Fest is important for artists—it strips performances down to conscionable the substance and the performer, escaped from logistical constraints similar lighting, sets, oregon costumes. This is what Grotowski taught my dada astir the doctrine of mediocre theatre erstwhile my dada went to survey with him successful Poland successful the 70s. I abide by that philosophy. That’s wherefore I bash one-man shows and constitute books—they don’t trust connected outer resources––anybody else’s clip oregon money––and I find that liberating personally and professionally.

At the festival, I’m performing a humorous, absurd anecdote from my assemblage days—an incidental that blurs the enactment betwixt fabrication and reality. As a writer, I emotion exploring this interplay, injecting real-life details into fictional scenarios to make humour, surrealism, and absurdity.

Q. How often bash you instrumentality nonrecreational proposal from your parents, oregon not?

Vivaan Shah: I bash instrumentality proposal from them erstwhile successful a while. But I americium besides an big and I cognize erstwhile to halt asking them for proposal astir everything. I americium besides autarkic and bash marque my ain decisions and I effort not to occupation them for proposal astir everything. They admit that.

Q. Does being an histrion assistance you arsenic a writer, and/or vice-versa?

Vivaan Shah: Absolutely. Many directors judge an histrion should person a spot of a writer successful them. However, I support my penning abstracted from acting—I spell to acceptable arsenic an actor, not a writer. I respect the publication and seldom alteration a word, seeing acting arsenic an workout successful execution alternatively than creation. I americium executing idiosyncratic else’s ideas, I americium saying idiosyncratic else’s thoughts. So successful that consciousness I americium a vessel, not a generator. If thing doesn’t enactment for me, I instrumentality it arsenic a situation alternatively than questioning the writer’s intent, unless it’s genuinely unworkable.

8. Any plans to person your books into a film?

Vivaan Shah: They are wholly antithetic mediums and creation forms. All my novels were conceived novelistically. They honour the novelistic form. I would overmuch alternatively that idiosyncratic person them into plays oregon graphic novels. That would beryllium pleasing to me.

Many directors judge an histrion should person a spot of a writer successful them, helium said. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)

9. Of late, galore actors person explored the literate world, with rather a fewer adjacent penning memoirs. Your instrumentality connected the coming unneurotic of these 2 worlds?

Vivaan Shah: An histrion is by quality a literate person. We are the interpreters of texts. So who amended to dabble successful the literate form. I deliberation it is perfectly earthy and wonderful. Actors person a fantastic knowing of prose, rhythm, style, emphasis, poetics, etc. I americium besides a immense instrumentality of the literate sub-genre: the actor’s memoir. It is simply a affluent tradition.

10. The astir important acquisition you person learned from your parents.

Vivaan Shah: To beryllium invested and funny successful the enactment and not the outcome.

The Spoken Fest returns to Mumbai for its 7th variation connected February 1 and 2, 2025.