Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who will soon be seen in Costao, recently gave an interview to Puja Talwar on her YouTube channel. In the conversation, he shared his concern about Bollywood’s current situation.

He pointed out that the industry is facing a creative slowdown and blamed it on the habit of borrowing ideas instead of creating original content. While talking about insecurity in Bollywood, Nawazuddin said, “In our industry, the same thing is repeated for five years straight — then, when people get bored, they finally let it go. Actually insecurity bohut badh gayi hai. Unko lagta hai ek formula chal raha hai toh usse chala lo, ghiso isko. Aur usse bhi pathetic yeh hogaya ki yeh 2, 3, 4 (sequels) hone lag gaya. Kahin na kahin jaise bankruptcy hoti hai, vaise yeh creativeruptcy hogaya. Kangaliyat hai bohut zayada. Shuru se humari industry chor rahi hai. Humne gaane chori kiye, story chori ki (Actually, insecurity has increased a lot. They feel that if a formula is working, they should keep milking it, overdo it. And what’s even more pathetic is that now there are 2, 3, 4 (sequels) being made. It’s creative bankruptcy, just like financial bankruptcy. There’s a lot of creative poverty. From the beginning, our industry has been stealing. We’ve stolen songs, we’ve stolen stories).”

He added, “Ab jo chor hote hain, voh kahan se creative ho sakte hain. Humne south se churaya, kabhi yahan se churaya, kabhi wahan se churaya. Even some cult-films which became hits, unke scenes bhi chori kare hue hain. Isko itna normalise kardiya gaya ki chori hai toh kya hua? (Now, how can thieves be creative? We’ve stolen from the South, sometimes from here, sometimes from there. Even some cult films that became hits have scenes that were copied. This has been so normalised that it’s like — so what if it’s stolen?). Earlier, they used to hand over a video and say, ‘This is the film we want to make.’ They’d watch that and just replicate it here. What can you expect from an industry like this? What kind of actors will come in? They’ll be of the same kind. And then actors and directors start quitting — like Anurag Kashyap, who was bringing in good work.”

Nawazuddin Siddiqui stars in the film Costao, playing the role of Costao Fernandes, a Goa customs officer who gave up everything to take down a major gold smuggling racket. Directed by Sejal Shah, this biographical crime drama also features Priya Bapat, Kishore, Hussain Dalal, and Mahika Sharma in key roles. The movie is streaming on ZEE5.