Speaking the truth in front of Amitabh Bachchan proved costly: ‘Panchayat’s Prahlad Cha lost his job, after the meeting he was told- ‘Leave this project’
Faizal Malik is in the headlines these days due to his excellent acting in ‘Panchayat Season 3’. Recently, he has talked about his struggling phase in an interview and told how he had to lose his job due to showing honesty in front of Amitabh Bachchan. Faizal narrated the story of meeting Amitabh Bachchan. Narrating an incident in the interview, Faizal said that once he went to meet Amitabh Bachchan at his house with Anurag Kashyap in connection with a show. Faizal said, ‘I was very excited to meet Bachchan sahab and when I saw him, I forgot my work and extended my autographed copy in front of him. When you go to Big B’s house, once the food starts, one dish does not finish and another comes. When I told him that I am from Allahabad, he talked to me a lot. Then he asked me if you would like to eat sesame laddus. I thought he would not eat all this due to his age. I should not say this but when the laddus came, he ate two laddus before me. I thought he lies about his age, he is actually very young.’ Faisal lost his job after telling the truth in front of Big B. He further said, ‘I gave him a 120-page script which he memorized. He did not even look at the script again to find any mistake. He asked me- when can we shoot it? I answered honestly- Sir, we will not shoot it now but after six months. After this, when our meeting ended and we came down the stairs, I was told- ‘You will not work on this project, you leave it.’ This is the price I had to pay for speaking the truth.’ Faisal used to do more production work than acting. Faisal is a resident of Allahabad. After graduation from Lucknow, he went to Delhi to prepare for MBA, but it could not happen. Then he came to Mumbai. He has been here for the last 20-22 years. He used to look after promo work in channels. As an associate producer, he has done many reality shows. He also used to work as a line producer. America’s famous TV show is ‘World Toughest Trucker’, whose line production he also looked after. Apart from this, Faisal also worked as an executive producer in films like ‘Revolver Rani’, ‘Saat Uchchake’. Faisal also runs a production house: For the last 12 years Faisal has been running a production house in Mumbai. As a producer, he also made a show called ‘Smoke’ for Eros Now. Faisal was looking after the production work in ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’. But when an actor who was to do the slaughterhouse scene left the film, he was made to wear a police uniform and act. His acting career started from there. In between, Faisal did the film ‘Fraud Saiyaan’ with Arshad Warsi. Then the director and writer of ‘Panchayat’ convinced him to do the role of Prahlad and now Faisal is very popular.