Comedy legend Johnny lever returns to stand-up comedy after several years with his daughter Jamie lever. He agrees that comedians need to be careful while mimicking others so that it may not hurt anyone’s sentiments. By Arjita Mishra
We all remember Babulal of Baazigar who had a problem of forgetting everything. The character of Babulal helped Johnny lever make his presence felt in the Industry. Although before Baazigar, he had appeared in several Bollywood films, but after this, he never looked back.
He is one of the gems which the Indian film industry has. Today, his daughter, Jamie lever is following his footsteps. “Comedy is in our blood,” Johnny said and laughed out loudly.
The father daughter-duo are in the Capital for their live performance and with this, Johnny is making his comeback in the stand-up comedy scene.
When we asked about what they are going to perform, Johnny said, “We don’t want to reveal anything about our show because then it will loose it’s charm. The only thing which we can tell you is that we are presenting comedy on the latest issues. And Jamie has prepared something very special for Delhi audience.”
When asked about the trends in the genre, both father and daughter agreed that vulgar comedy has replaced the old world charm and due to this, people cannot watch films with their family. “It is not necessary to have comedy in vulgarity,” said Johnny.
To this Jamie added, “People always say that history repeats it self, so I think that the trend of healthy comedy will be back soon. Personally, in our family, we don’t enjoy adult comedy. I am from this young generation, but still I am not comfortable with it. Somehow, my culture doesn’t allows me to do this.” But she cleared that there is also an audience for adult comedy. “But this doesn’t mean that the people who are doing adult comedy are doing something wrong because there is also audience for it. There is an audience for films like Kya Kool Hai Hum and Masti too. So, we have to understand that there are people who accept both sides of the genre. In our family, we have taken a stand to do clean and family comedy and we are doing it,” she clarified.
Both of them agreed that while doing a comedy, the artiste should not hurt anyone’s sentiments. “We should be careful while we doing mimicry because it might hurt someone’s sentiments. Not everyone takes mimicry as a light comedy,” said the veteran actor.
“To create humour on any political issue or on any particular subject is quite difficult because we don’t want to hurt sentiments of people. We cover each and every topic through our comedy, but it is important for us not to cross limits,” Jamie pointed out.
Johnny accepted that in past few years, Indian film industry has changed a lot. Now, vulgarity in comedies are accepted by the younger generation. But the fact can not be denied that new techniques have been adopted and Indian cinema is gaining worldwide recognition.
He also said that since the past few years, films are being made on a large scale and that is one of the reasons several films remain unnoticed. According to Johnny, “Earlier people used to wait for films to be released. Those films used to stay on the silver screen for a longer time but now, film kab aati hai or kab chali jati hai pata hi nahi chalta.”
The actor also commented on mainstream actors doing comedy and said, “Actors know that no one is going to say anything to them so, they have started to do comedy, too.” He continued, “Earlier, there was a different role written for an actor, comedian and villain but today mainstream actors are doing everything.” But on other hand, he also said that once again, people want to see comedians on silver screen, “I feel that those days will be back when there will be a role for comedians too,” he concluded.
photos Sunny Mathews