Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui has taken a sharp jab at the Hindi film industry, accusing it of normalising plagiarism and lacking originality. While promoting his latest release, “Costao”, the actor opened up in an interview with Puja Talwar on YouTube, criticising Bollywood’s current creative direction.
“In our industry, the same thing keeps getting recycled for five years. Once the audience grows tired, only then do they let it go,” he said, describing the industry as being plagued by deep insecurity.
“There’s no creativity left. It’s become about clinging to formulas and endlessly dragging them out. Sequels upon sequels—2, 3, 4—it’s all creative bankruptcy. This industry has been stealing since the beginning. Songs, scripts, scenes—nothing has been spared.”
Referring to Bollywood as “chor”, Nawaz added, “How can thieves be creative? We’ve lifted from the South, from here and there—even from cult classics. Some popular scenes were directly copied. And now it’s all so normalised that no one even questions it anymore.”
He further stated that many films in the past were straightforward remakes. “People would just hand over a video cassette and say, ‘Make this’. Directors and actors with genuine talent, like Anurag Kashyap, are gradually leaving. That says something.”
In “Costao”, now streaming on ZEE5, Nawazuddin plays the titular role of Costao Fernandes, a Goa-based customs officer who risked it all to expose a major gold smuggling network.
Directed by Sejal Shah, the biographical crime drama also stars Priya Bapat, Kishore, Hussain Dalal, and Mahika Sharma.
Source: Hindustan Times
