04 May,2010 09:14 AM IST | | Sarita Tanwar
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Fun Fact: Comedy films do good business. Funnier Fact: Actors don't give this genre the respectability it deserves. Why? Because of the idiotic (and archaic) school of thought that a comedy film is frivolous. Oh please, hanging from a flying helicopter and leaping from a sky scraper is 'easy', making that front-bencher laugh, now that's a task.
Movie stars treat comedy films with disdain because it doesn't win them awards. Also, they want to be taken seriously; and 'be a part of meaningful cinema.' The smart dudes like Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn realised long time ago that there was a killing to be made in the funny flicks. They made a super-smooth transition from action to comedy. Yet, there is an entire generation of actors who treat this genre as 'halka.'u00a0 In an interview Arshad Warsi, best known for his character as Circuit in the Munnabhai films, says he is willing to act in an Ishqiya for free but will charge three times his fee for a Golmaal 3. Why reject the very thing that made you famous? It's like Sasha Cohen Baron declaring that he will no longer act in the outrageous films like Borat and Bruno, which turned him into an international celebrity overnight. Aamir gnashed his teeth in Ghajini and made 100 crores. He tickled your funny bone in 3 Idiots and made 300 crores. Who's laughing now?
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There are thousands of competent actors but very few who can make you chortle. Actors from the sixties and seventies like Mehmood, Johnny Walker and Bhagwan, Tun Tun, Om Prakash, Utpal Dutt are remembered even today; not for their emoting skills. They linger in the memory not for the dishum dishum, pappi-jhappi or naach-gaana. They are remembered because they left the public grinning. And they are still grinning, after all these years. These actors are immortalised because of their funny roles. Isn't that what every actor wants? To be rememebered forever? See the light, boys and girls. Sign those funny films now.u00a0
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