Paul Darke’s Interview with Nabil Shaban

From around 1999

Discusses the films Born of Fire / Wittgenstein and City of Joy

PAUL: I Just want to talk about your film work because I write the film column for DAM. Do you feel it is different to act in film to theatre, what is the difference do you feel?

NABIL SHABAN: There is a difference, in many ways I prefer acting on stage to acting in film because you are doing a story from beginning, with a middle and an end, as a continuity - continuity of development of character, emotions and so on and you are getting immediate feed back from the audience. You are performing to an audience and you can constantly gage your performance and gage their response to that (feed back.?). You are in much greater control over what the audience sees because it is basically you and the audience.

Whereas with film it is very clinical. Its bitty. You often have to do things in 30(?) second spurts and you have to maintain a certain performance every time you do another take of that bit. and also ultimately you are not in control of what the viewer gets because the camera can be long short, wide shot, close up, what ever and the editor and director will decide ultimately what they will use. You could be acting your little heart out, being very subtle or whatever and what you actually see ends up being a wide shot or for some other reason a further wide shot, also the lighting may effect what the viewer gets and the music, the sound track too, so when you end up seeing the end result - well I am invariably disappointed, because God I'm not getting a feel for what I was experiencing isn't coming over.

PAUL: Which is your best film, favourite?

NABIL SHABAN: In terms of what?

PAUL: It turned out how you wanted - thought it would: whatever.

NABIL SHABAN: I suppose in terms of coming out how I wanted - where the director was really using me to bring out what thought I was giving is probably Born of Fire.

PAUL: That's the Turkish film?

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah. I mean I had a very good relationship with the director and I sort of helped write bits of the script. I was able to change things that I thought were offensive and he was very open to that, for example, you know my character was just given the label dwarf and I was referred to as the dwarf in the script. So I said to Jamil that I would prefer it if we didn't use that label. Okay, I know none of the characters have got names in the script, you know that's fine not having a name but if he could have a title then I think it would be more appropriate to call me Silent Man. Because it also suggests a choice on my part, as well, to be silent and he said okay; he really went with that idea and that was really good. And there were other moments as well and, in fact, I got him to change the ending as well!

PAUL: Do you not think that some of the other stuff you've been in some disabled people say you've been giving negative images of them like in Born of Fire, on a superficial reading, that you are a bit of a creepy curio-atmosphere, kind of negative thing?

NABIL SHABAN: Well I don't think so, first of all, yes it starts like that in terms of how the script is written and so on. But I think me and eventually the director were able to turn that around and turn him into a much more positive character that contributed to the happy ending of the film.

PAUL: Well, what about Wittgenstein where you are this alien thing not even part of humanity despite the fact that its you?

NABIL SHABAN: Well again, the point is I think its the totality of what I did, Like if I was only ever playing aliens there would be something to object to, but I don't see it, just because I'm disabled that I should deny myself negative images or a particular character. In other words, I refuse for example to sort of say I will never play a bad guy just because I'm disabled. If able-bodied actors can play bad guys why can't I! Similarly, I would never say I will never play a heroic character because, again, we have got this other, we've got the two sides to the coin, we've got the disabled person as a super hero, the disabled person as arch villain and I would again not say I'm never going to play a hero because my disability is forcing me to only play certain kinds of characters and ultimately what you are left with is disabled people will only play bland characters. Which I think is equally as bad, just to be only playing mediocre characters, also the thing is film drama, TV drama and theatre drama they are not about the real world ever you know, Anthony Hopkins never plays a real person you'd meet on the street. Juliet Stevenson never plays ...

PAUL: But surely the beauty of their performances is that you think you have. Even though you have never spoken to them they could be your next door neighbour?

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah ... Possibly, but we are talking ... Drama in films or whatever is about people, either extraordinary people or people in extraordinary situations. They are not about the life that most of us lead. So, by saying its okay for non-disabled actors to do those sorts of stories, but its not all right of disabled because it creates an unreal image of disabled people and I don't regard myself as normal anyway as a person you know if I was non disabled I'd refuse to be part of the normal world, because I hate normality. I would play the alien in Wittgenstein because, (a), I hadn't played an alien for a long time, (b), he's not an evil alien, he's actually a philosophical alien who's actually intelligent and has got something to say. The alien is also helping the young Wittgenstein come up with his philosophical ideals, so in that case I don't regard that as being a particularly negative image of disability, and disability isn't referred to. What is wrong is when disability itself is like, you know, Captain Hook or Long John Silver or whatever!

PAUL: But if you got offered Captain Hook for forty grand would you do it?

NABIL SHABAN: No

PAUL: So you wouldn't do it for the money?

NABIL SHABAN: No, I would never do something for the money

PAUL: That's very decent of you … I'd do anything for the money!

NABIL SHABAN: No, I was offered the part in Hardware, have you seen Hardware? The techno-engineer character: the dwarf. They approached me first and my agent sent me the script, it took me about an hour and a half to read it. I then rang my agent, Derek, and said: this script is a load of shit and I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. He said: ‘all right, okay, but what else did you think about it?’

PAUL: So you wouldn't let the practicalities of everyday living get in the way unlike me

NABIL SHABAN: No, I mean I've turned down the Hunch Back of Notre Dame and an evil monster on Space Cadets on the BBC. In fact, Graeae have been approached to do a TV commercial for tights,

PAUL: They 've refused!

NABIL SHABAN: No, they are not refusing they are giving individual actors the choice to be involved because they want to use extracts from our show to be involved. But I have said no, I'm not doing it, if you want to do it that's your business. I'm not going to play their game. But, me personally, I wouldn't do it. A, I don't do TV commercials per se, and, B, even if I did I wouldn't touch a Murdoch pay packet with a barge pole.

PAUL: So what was it like to work with Derek Jarman?

NABIL SHABAN: It was great

PAUL: Why?

NABIL SHABAN: Very open, again very accessible director, open to suggestions. I would send in/him script changes - only in reference to my character and he would use some of them, and we'd discuss, there was a sort of very friendly atmosphere. No tension

PAUL: Has he influenced your directorial debut, someone I know said to me about it being very Jarmanesque,

NABIL SHABAN: Oh really?

PAUL: In that some of his early stuff is like ‘this is me and my gay friends having a good time’ and yours are like ‘his is me and my disabled friends having a good time’.

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah, I think not just him though I think Warhol, but then I think Warhol would have influence Jarman, so there's a kind of lineage I suspect. So I've been influence by Jarman, Warhol and Ken Russel...

PAUL: Though Ken Russel has made some pretty dodgy movies about disability …

NABIL SHABAN: Yes, disgusting ....

PAUL: Lady Chatterly's got to be up there!!

NABIL SHABAN: Well actually I recently had another look at Tommy because when I first saw Tommy I wasn't really aware of what was happening. When I saw it again recently I thought this is disgusting utterly disgusting in terms of disability imagery. Yeah - which is probably why Ken Russell's never replied to any of my letters, because I would like to work with him, but it would have to be done with something which would give us some self respect.

PAUL: What was City of Joy like? Which swung completely to the commercial side. What was working with Patrick Swazy like? He was getting paid a lot more than you I suspect?

NABIL SHABAN: Oh yes a lot more.

PAUL: Even more than Pauline Collins...a person I could shoot!

NABIL SHABAN: Certainly. I should think he was earning at least a million for that

PAUL: So not that much more than you!

NABIL SHABAN: But you see the total budget of that was about 30 million, so I don't know how much of that would go to him.

PAUL: You could have built (ironically and sarcastically said) a sheltered workshop for the disabled with that ....

NABIL SHABAN: Well you could have made about 15 pretty good movies for that.

PAUL: Yeah but only if they were going to have people like you in them!!

NABIL SHABAN: Yes! Well the thing that gets me about these movies …

PAUL: Yes but only if they were going to have people like you in them!

NABIL SHABAN: Yes, but, I mean, well, Patrick Swazy as a movie star is quite a decent sort of person, he had no sort of … he wasn't snobby. Very friendly and sort of mucked in and there was an occasion at the hotel swimming pool - I had some stunt doubles: a couple of dwarves - were my stunt doubles. Okay, they didn't know how to swim. And my character - well this was ridiculous, you get a stunt person who is to be thrown in to the water who actually doesn't know how to swim!

PAUL: You mean they'd dragged a couple of dwarves off the street and said right you look a bit like ...

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah they did, off the street, literally … Well one of them who'd never been set on fire before in his life, you know you have three stunt doubles.

PAUL: To be fair dwarves are usually setting other people on fire!

NABIL SHABAN: Yes. But on this occasion they had 3 stunt dwarves who'd never worked in their lives and who were volunteering to be set on fire and drowned basically. I called them Take One, Take Two and Take Three, I thought if it gets to Take Four then it’s me. But no, actually they were so precisely organised; these Hollywood crews were not a bunch of cowboys like they were on the circus where it was very dangerous all the time. Hollywood has got it all wrapped up they are really scared of the insurance and blah blah blah, so the guy who was set on fire he did it in one take and it was so perfectly controlled.

Anyway they were going to have to train these people how to swim, there were also some of those kids who were in the film who didn't know how to swim, so actually they were in the swimming pool at the hotel in Calcutta - the stunt co-ordinator, stunt man and Patrick Swazy, the three of them, were teaching the dwarves and the kids how to swim in the pool, about half way through the lessons the manager of the hotel came down and said I'm sorry they are not allowed to use the pool, and he said why - trying to whisper - well they are lower cast, they mix with lepers, they are sort of scum basically. And of course Patrick and the stunt companyo. said fuck off, no way, we are teaching these people how to swim, they are going to swim and they are going to swim in your pool. The manager said ‘but the guests - the Indian guests- are complaining’. Patrick said: tough and if you insist on this we are moving out of the hotel.

PAUL: And you were a big group.

NABIL SHABAN: Oh yeah 200, a minimum of 200.

PAUL: So what was the director like?

NABIL SHABAN: Roland Joffe, yeah, he was fine really, I mean, unfortunately I think he lost his way as a director: City of Joy was really quite a poor movie. The film could have been so much better given the book, right, how powerful the book was and of course one of the reasons that the film was undermined was they over emphasised the American elements, over emphasised the Patrick Swazy character. They did that for what they call sound commercial reasons right, to appeal to middle America right, which is an appalling reason in my view really for treating film and ultimately it ended up being mediocre, not a classic when it could have been …. So its ... and also again I had to try and bring about certain changes where I found them to be dubious as far as disability is concerned. Well... one thing I didn't want … I had certain success: I persuade Roland Joffe to have my character have the baby that is in the book because it wasn't in the script, which really surprised me. And I said listen, you know, my wife and I are both lepers - we had a kid that doesn't have leprosy because its not genetic okay - but that is a really interesting thing to portray and said it is also important that people just see visually two disabled people, one who is genuinely disabled: i.e., me and the woman, actually having a family and a child in a Hollywood movie and there is no big deal made of it as such. And I said in terms of role model its really important its not as if I was trying to add something its in the book. And I said, secondly, its an important plot device because in the book that is what brings Patrick Swazy's character - the doctor - into the community is having to try and save this baby and the mother and you haven't got a reason in the new script and he said okay you are right okay we will put it back in. So that to me was my biggest coup in terms of getting some positive put thing into the script. Then when the baby was being born there was a line that I resisted, which was like I getting excited you known which is understandable in the circumstance and going: ‘Is it normal? Is it normal?’. We were shooting the scene and I was coming up to this line and I pull Roland away a minute and said I've got a real problem with this line and I just don't want to say it. He said why not: because I know in this circumstance okay you probably would say some thing like that because it means blah blah blah blah, but the point is, I'm thinking of the wider audience and I just don't want people to be hearing me say that. So he said well what are you going to say instead, you've got to say something as a father who's concerned. So we were trying to work it out - meanwhile the rest of the cast were getting really pissed off wondering why there was this delay, and one of them was sort of saying why can't they just say is it normal what is the problem with this? You know. And Roland said ‘shh’ be quiet; so we were having this quiet tete de tete (with an accent) and I think in the end I said something like is it a boy?

PAUL: But without the Jewish accent! (Laughs.)

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah (laughs)

PAUL: So did you go to Hollywood for this at all?

NABIL SHABAN: No

PAUL: Not at all?

NABIL SHABAN: No, it was all .... well most of it 99% of it was shot in Calcutta. 1% of it was shot in Pinewood(?).

PAUL: But you have been to Hollywood?

NABIL SHABAN: No never.

PAUL: Why not you don't think there is an opening for you?

NABIL SHABAN: No absolutely not

PAUL: Why?

NABIL SHABAN: I'd hate it to go to Hollywood.

PAUL: Perhaps in the long-term yes but in the short term....

NABIL SHABAN: Yeah, but I'm not doing this for big bucks, I'm not an actor for money I'm and actor as a means to an end and that is to bring about change that’s why I act

PAUL: So you obviously believe that acting can do that?

NABIL SHABAN: only on an incremental basis.

PAUL: Do you see any evidence?

NABIL SHABAN: Yes we've seen changes already in the past 15 years...

PAUL: Such as?

NABIL SHABAN: Such as that there are more and more disabled actors in evidence seen on the streets in Britain and you know more and more disabled people are confident and are able to protest and chain themselves up against buses and you know stuff like that and the fact that the disability culture is continuing at pace and you are getting more disabled comedians and actors and so on for a brief while you had a disabled person in a soap - an appalling soap but then I think all soaps are appalling. And, I wouldn't be seen dead in one, but I don't mind others ... I think it’s a good idea and that other disabled people should be seen in soaps and situation comedies. And I mean the fact that here you know we've got accessible loos and showers, for actors you know back stage - dressing rooms and all that is as accessible as we could hope in this era that we are in. So when they were putting this together they were actually thinking in terms of possible disabled performers and 20 years ago that would have been completely unthinkable, you wouldn't get theatres you know, the Oval they've got .... they have made an effort to make back stage accessible to disabled performers So they are right real concrete example of where changes have happened and these changes have been partly due to the fact that there have been increasingly more and more disabled actors

The End of the Interview.

3,300 words