2 minutes of readingChennaiFebruary 7, 2026 21:03 IST
Bollywood veteran couple Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah are students of the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD). The institute has many other renowned alumni including Om Puri, Irrfan Khan, Anupam Kher, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Neena Gupta, Piyush Mishra and others. However, in a recent interaction, Naseeruddin and Ratna admitted that they did not learn acting in high school.
Speaking to Curtain Call with Aahana Kumra, Naseeruddin said, “There was no acting teacher worthy of the name in NSD when I was there.” He shared how a high school teacher taught him the discipline of acting, but no one taught him about the craft during his time there. “But as for the craft of the job itself, apart from gaining acting experience in various plays over the years, I didn’t learn anything about acting while I was at NSD,” he added.
Ratna had a similar experience. She said: “The same goes for when I went to NSD, seven years after he passed out, even until then they hadn’t discovered that an acting teacher was worth anything.” Naseer chimed in: “They haven’t done it yet.”
Naseeruddin also talked about why this is the reason he keeps coming back to NSD to take acting classes and help students. He shared that this also allows him to learn more about the craft. “Only failures teach again at NSD. That’s why I considered it my responsibility to help these kids. I don’t consider myself a know-it-all at all, but since I started working with students, I’ve learned more about acting than I’ve learned in 30-40 years of my life.”
In a recent column for The Indian Express, Naseeruddin He said that they withdrew his invitation to a Bombay University event. He also accused the university of not apologizing to him and alleged that they went so far as to announce that he had refused to appear at the event. His column sparked widespread debate.