No plans to direct films: Om Puri

KOCHI: National Award winning Actor, Om Puri, says he has no plans to direct Bollywood films and rued that the powerful medium is being "wasted".

"It is very sad that such a powerful medium which can help us to grow better is being wasted," the actor said about the films being churned out by Bollywood.

The actor attended a reading session Unlikely Hero Om Puri written by his journalist wife Nandita Puri. The veteran actor released the Malayalam translation of the book titled Prathinayakan: Om Puriyude Katha.

The national-award-winning actor, who has been a face of parallel cinema with movies like Ardh Satya, Mirch Masalaand Dharavi, has no ambition to direct a movie in near future.

"I can direct plays, but not films," said Puri, who recently finished West is West, a sequel to East is East. The film was partially shot in Punjab and in Manchester.

Asked about the Malayalam film industry, the actor said he had worked with late actor Gopi in a Hindi film. Describing Gopi as a "wonderful" actor, Puri said he had given an "electrifying" performance in the film.

The 59-year-old actor said he liked the Malayalam cinema of the seventies and eighties as the conventional and art films were given due importance. Cinema flourished and being a literary state, people appreciated well known directors like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N Karun and Late Aravindan, who made film of high standards, he said.